THE    GULF 
OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

OR 

North  and  South  America 
as  Seen  by  Each  Other 

TANCREDO  PINOCHET 


£,  LIVE  RIGHT 

New  yqrk 


iaW  BON  I 


c£  jj+Jky  **  v*\  fa,  «******-»  (\Ls**+< } 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
BONI  &  LIVERIGHT,  INC. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Introduction 

CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

.     .       ix 


I    The  Letters  and  Their  Censor     ...  -i 

7 
II    Idealism 

III  Democracy 30 

IV  Imperialism uu 

V    Black  and  White 91 

VI    Woman's  Suffrage 115 

VII    Marriage  and  Divorce 137 

.     .  163 


VIII  Religion 

IX  Prohibition 180 

X  Education,  Character  and  Habits      .     .  203 

XI  Pan  Americanism 230 

XII  The  Light  of  Truth' 247 


454907 


in 


INTRODUCTION 

This  book  is  neither  a  novel  nor  a  didactic  treatise. 
In  it  a  woman  and  a  man  speak.  The  woman— so  says 
the  book— was  born  and  educated  in  Chicago,  but  she 
might  just  as  well  have  been  born  and  educated  in 
Buffalo,  New  York  or  Seattle.  She  is  a  woman  of  this 
country.  The  man— so  says  the  book— was  born  in 
Santiago,  Chile,  but  he  might  as  well  have  been  born 
in  Argentina,  Colombia  or  Ecuador.  He  is  a  man  of 
Latin  America. 

The  man— so  says  the  book— wrote  letters 'to  his  wife 
about  this  country.  It  is  of  no  particular  importance 
that  these  letters  were  addressed  to  his  wife;  they 
might  have  been  sent  to  his  son,  to  his  brother,  or  to 
one  of  his  friends.  Or  he  might  have  talked  to  them  on 
the  subject  instead  of  writing;  or  else  he  might  have 
only  thought  about  these  matters  instead  of  writing 
or  speaking  about  them.  Any  man  who  has  left  the 
environment  in  which  he  has  always  lived  sees  things 
other  than  those  which  he  has  seen  before,  and  is 
guided  by  a  new  train  of  thought.  Whether  he  writes, 
utters  or  keeps  these  thoughts  to  himself  is  of  no  con- 
sequence.    The  thoughts  are  there. 

The  woman — so  says  the  book— is  a  member  of  the 
Censor's  Department  of  the  United  States  Government 
during  the  war.     It  would  make  no  difference  if  she 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

were  not.  She  is  only  a  symbol,  because  every  woman 
N  is  a  member  of  the  body  of  censors  in  war-time  and  in 
time  of  peace,  when  the  beliefs  and  moral  code  of  her 
country  are  attacked. 

The  woman  repudiates  the  way  of  writing — or  speak- 
ing, or  thinking — of  the  representative  of  another  race 
which  is  in  contact  with  hers,  and  she  makes  her  pro- 
test. According  to  the  book,  she  makes  her  protest,  in 
writing  alongside  what  the  man  has  written.  It  would 
be  just  the  same  if  she  had  spoken  or  merely  thought 
about  it  instead  of  writing. 

The  line  of  thought  of  the  man  and  that  of  the  woman 
are  not  systematic.  We  do  not  think  one  day  exclu- 
sively about  one  thing,  and  another  day  about  one  other 
thing,  and  on  a  third  day  about  yet  one  other  thing. 
We  think  every  day  about  a  thousand  things.  Just  so 
did  the  man  and  the  woman  think  on  this  occasion,  but 
the  book  has  classified  and  placed  in  one  separate  com- 
partment all  that  the  woman  and  the  man  thought  about 
each  determined  subject. 

Two  things  cannot  be  placed  in  contact  without  pro- 
ducing a  reaction,  a  protest,  a  contention.  Place  a  hot 
body  alongside  a  cold  body :  they  will  contend  with  each 
other  until  they  reach  an  agreement ;  and  when  they  are 
reconciled,  if  they  are  of  the  same  size,  the  warmer  body 
will  have  given  some  of  its  heat  to  the  colder  body  until 
both  have  been  reduced  to  the  same  temperature. 

The  shock  of  man  with  man,  of  the  races  with  the 
races,  is  much  more  complex,  and  may  occur  without 
immediate  contact  between  them.  Communication  be- 
tween peoples  is  attained  by  mail,  by  commerce  and  by 
telegraph. 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

This  book  is  the  analysis  of  the  shock  between  Latin 
America  and  Anglo-Saxon  America.  The  man  and 
woman  who  are  speaking  here  are  symbols.  They  may 
never  have  seen  each  other.  It  does  not  matter.  It 
may  be  that  the  man  never  came  to  this  country,  and 
that  he  received  his  impressions  through  books,  maga- 
zines or  newspapers.  It  may  be  that  the  woman  never 
went  to  South  America,  and  that  she  received  her  im- 
pressions in  the  same  way.  It  all  comes  to  the  same 
thing.  The  two  continents,  the  two  races  are  in  close 
contact.  There  is  a  shock,  a  reaction,  and  this  book  is 
the  analysis  of  this  shock,  of  this  reaction. 

This  book  is  the  dialogue  of  the  two  continents,  the 
dialogue  of  the  two  Americas.  It  is  the  report  produced 
by  the  moral  shock  of  two  worlds.  The  author  has 
listened  to  this  dialogue  on  both  slopes  of  the  Andes 
and  on  both  sides  of  the  Mississippi ;  he  has  classified 
and  written  down  the  things  he  has  heard. 


The  author  is  indebted  for  the  translation 
of  this  book  from  Spanish  into  English  to 

MISS  GEGILIA  M.  BRENNAN 

and 

MR.  WILLIAM  SAGHS 

and  more  especially  to 

MR.  CHARLES  EVERS 

Editor  of  "The  South  American" 

who,  guided  by  the  Spanish  version,  revised 

and  polished  the  English  text. 


THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

OR 

NORTH  AND  SOUTH  AMERICA 

AS  SEEN  BY  EACH  OTHER 


THE  GULF  OF 
MISUNDERSTANDING 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  LETTERS  AND  THEIR  CENSOR 

NO  sooner  had  the  United  States  entered  the 
European  war  than  the  necessity  was  seen  for 
an  official  censorship  of  international  corre- 
spondence. Accordingly,  in  New  York,  San  Francisco 
and  New  Orleans,  the  government  established  offices 
authorized  to  examine  every  letter  which  left  the  coun- 
try. After  the  sensational  discoveries  which  brought  to 
light  the  cable  correspondence  of  Count  von  Luxburg 
during  his  stay  in  Buenos  Aires,  the  order  was  given  to 
use  very  special  care  with  all  the  letters  coming  from 
or  going  to  South  America. 

Miss  Mabel  Jones  was  one  of  the  staff  charged  with 
the  duty  of  examining  correspondence  in  the  Spanish 
Department  of  the  New  York's  Censor's  Office.  During 
her  college  course  at  the  University  of  Chicago,  Miss 
Jones  had  mastered  the  language  of  Cervantes;  and, 
after  graduation,  she  went  to  Spain  for  the  purpose  of 
continuing  her  studies  of  Latin  American  civilization 
and  making  original  researches  in  the  Royal  Library  of 
Madrid.    In  order  to  know  well  the  Spanish  America 

1 


2  TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDEBSTANDING 

of  to-da^,  fche  wished  to  dive  into  the  history  of  the 
conquest  and  of  the  colony.  A  great  reader,  Miss  Jones' 
interest  had  been  qnickly  aroused  by  reading  Prescott's 
"Conquests  of  Peru  and  Mexico,"  andJater  she  had 
systematically  read  any  book  she  could  get  about  South 
American  life.  She  soon  became  convinced  that,  in 
making  these  original  investigations,  she  was  preparing 
herself  to  revise  #nd  correct  jnuch  that  passes  for 
knowledge  with  respect  to  these  countries. 

The  daughter  of  wealthy  parents,  this  work  was  her 
pleasure,  and  she  had  the  necessary  means  to  live  and 
travel,  without  being  hampered  by  the  necessity  of  earn- 
ing her  daily  bread. 

After  finishing  her  studies  in  Madrid,  she  returned 
to  the  United  States,  where  she  spent  a  year  with  her 
family,  and  then  undertook  a  long  journey  through  Latin 
America.  She  devoted  much  time  to  seeing  Argentina, 
Chile,  Uruguay,  Peru,  Ecuador,  Venezuela,  Colombia 
and  Mexico.  A  few  days  were  spent  in  Rio  de  Janeiro 
and  short  trips  made  into  the  small  republics  of  Central 
America.  The  only  Latin  American  country  she  did 
not  visit  was  Paraguay. 

She  had  now  a  large  accumulation  of  notes  prepared 
and  classified  for  writing  an  intensive  book  on  Spanish 
American  civilization,  when  the  European  war  broke  out. 
The  first  chapters  of  her  work  were  written  when  her 
own  country  declared  war  against  Germany.  She  was 
then  thirty-eight  years  old. 

Miss  Jones  believed  herself  in  duty  bound  to  devote 
all  her  energies  to  help  her  country.  If  she  had  been 
able  to  do  nothing  else,  she  would  have  set  about  knitting 
woolen  garments  for  the  Red  Cross,  as  millions  of  her 
fellow-countrywomen  were  doing,  but,  to  her  great  satis- 


TEE  LETTERS  AND  THEIR  CENSOR  3 

faction,  the  Government  accepted  the  offer  of  her  services 
in  the  Spanish  Department  of  the  Censor's  Office  in 
New  York. 

In  this  work  she  found  ample  field  for  her  studies,  as 
there  passed  before  her,  like  an  endless  film  of  moving 
pictures,  the  ideas,  the  opinions  and  the  different  points 
of  view  of  the  immense  number  of  representative  South 
Americans  that,  as  transient  visitors  or  permanent  resi- 
dents of  the  United  States,  were  carrying  on  a  corre- 
spondence with  the  other  America.  These  live,  intimate 
documents  of  a  throbbing  reality  she  found  far  more 
absorbing  than  had  ever  been  the  crumbling  archives  of 
the  Eoyal  Library  of  Madrid,  in  spite  of  all  its  wealth 
of  data  relating  to  days  gone  by. 

The  reading  of  private  letters  of  eminent  men,  which 
posterity  has  been  able  to  bring  to  light,  has  proved, 
at  times,  to  be  the  one  technical  point  lacking,  the  real 
key-note  of  interpretation  in  great  historical  moments. 
The  perusal  of  these  letters  of  a  nameless  but  select 
multitude,  which  speaks  without  restrictions  of  present 
day  life,  gave  access  to  an  intimate  library  often  denied 
to  the  historian  and  sociologist.  Miss  Jones  was  finding 
her  work  intensely  interesting. 

Purely  commercial  letters  did  not  especially  attract 
her  attention.  Some  enigmatic  notes  were  the  object 
of  detailed  study,  and  often  they  were  allowed  to  pass 
as  a  decoy  in  order  later  to  reveal  a  secret.  Sometimes 
it  turned  out  that  they  were  simply  love  letters  of  girls 
whose  parents  had  not  sanctioned  the  correspondence,  or 
of  married  women  who  had  adopted  a  species  of  code 
for  clandestine  communication. 

One  letter  from  a  South  American  gentleman  to  his 


4  THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

wife  seemed  of  most  unusual  interest.  It  was  a  bitter 
criticism  of  men  and  things  in  the  United  States,  a  series 
of  what  Miss  Jones  mentally  qualified  as  profoundly 
mistaken  judgments.  Of  her  own  accord,  and  even  at 
the  risk  of  overstepping  her  duties  in  the  Department, 
she  determined  to  add  to  the  letter,  on  separate  sheets, 
a  few  observations  on  the  opinions  of  the  writer.  She 
made  copies  of  both  the  letters  and  of  her  own  comments, 
to  serve  later  as  references  for  use  in  her  books. 

A  few  days  later  there  came  to  the  office  another 
letter  from  the  same  gentleman  to  the  same  lady,  and 
again  Miss  Jones  thought  it  proper  to  add  her  comment. 
These  letters,  written  in  Chicago,  111.,  were  directed  to 
Santiago,  Chile,  and  continued  to  be  mailed  with  the 
utmost  regularity.  Although  these  letters  criticized  ad- 
versely the  United  States,  there  was  no  sufficient  reason 
why  they  should  be  detained  by  the  censorship,  but  Miss 
Jones  thought  that  it  could  do  no  harm,  and  might  do 
good  to  add  her  comments  to  each  of  them. 

The  Chilean  gentleman  and  Miss  Jones  were  unac- 
quainted, but  to  her  the  correspondent  of  Chicago  seemed 
to  be  a  palpitating  reality.  It  was  the  soul  of  Latin 
America  that  vibrated  in  his  letters.  She  now  saw  in 
writing  what  she  had  heard  a  thousand  times  in  her 
long  journeys.  This  false  conception  of  her  country  had 
continually  tormented  her. 

He  wrote  from  his  room  in  the  Hotel  Blackstone,  fac- 
ing Lake  Michigan,  and  something  indefinable  clouded 
the  view  of  this  observer:  he  could  not  see  into  the 
depths  of  American  life,  just  as  his  eyes  could  not  pene- 
trate the  depths  of  the  lake.  Should  he  be  given  a 
diver's  dress  to  enable  him  to  explore  the  ocean  of 
American  life? 


TEE  LETTERS  AND  THEIR  CENSOR  5 

Formerly,  when  she  was  in  Buenos  Aires,  Eio,  Santi- 
ago or  Bogata,  she  made  allowances  for  those  who  spoke 
in  generalities  of  her  country  because  they  did  not  know 
it ;  but  here  was  an  intellectual  Spanish  American,  living 
in  the  heart  of  the  country,  who  could  see  only  through 
the  smoked  glasses  of  his  spectacles. 

She  read  each  letter  from  him  with  avidity.  Often 
she  took  up  her  pen  to  reply  to  him,  but  as  quickly  laid 
it  down  again.  In  spite  of  the  ill-will — which  bordered 
on  hatred — with  which  he  wrote  about  the  United 
States,  she  could  not  dislike  him. 

"He  does  not  understand, ' '  she  said.  "How  am  I 
to  make  him  understand?"  This  Chicago  correspondent 
was  for  her  the  whole  of  Latin  America  in  the  heart 
of  her  country. 

"We  must  get  to  understand  each  other,"  she  went 
on  thinking.  "We  need  to  understand  each  other  in 
order  to  fulfill  our  historic  mission."  Trained  to  look 
back  on  the  long  road  of  history,  she  was  also  capable  of 
looking  forward,  and  saw  in  the  future  a  Latin  America 
of  two  hundred  million  souls,  prosperous,  of  potential 
vitality,  a  factor  as  decisive  in  the  problems  of  the  world 
as  her  country  was  now.  Situated  between  Europe  and 
Asia,  all  America  would  have  to  be  a  moral  entity  to 
figure  worthily  in  the  great  conflicts  of  the  future. 

At  last  the  war  came  to  an  end,  and  the  censorship 
was  abolished.  The  Chilean  gentleman,  who  had  brought 
with  him  a  proposition  for  the  investment  of  capital  in 
the  extensive  copper  deposits  that  had  been  discovered 
on  his  estates,  visited  California  and  other  States  of  the 
Union,  where  his  business  delayed  him  one  year  longer. 

A  few  days  before  his  departure  for  Chile,  Miss  Jones, 
who  had  heard  that  he  was  in  New  York,  went  to  see 


6  THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

him  at  his  hotel  in  order  to  ask  his  permission  to  publish 
his  letters  to  his  wife  with  her  comments  added.  He 
would  never  have  allowed  her  to  do  so,  if  it  had  not 
been  that  he  himself  had  modified  largely  his  beliefs, 
owing  to  the  opportunities  he  had  lately  enjoyed  to  pene- 
trate deeper  into  North  American  life,  and  influenced, 
as  he  could  not  fail  to  be,  by  the  arguments  contained  in 
Miss  Jones'  writings,  which  his  wife  had  sent  him. 

4 'My  first  impressions  were  readily  acquired  by  super- 
ficial observation,"  he  said.  "Looking  into  the  heart  of 
things  has  taught  me  to  understand  this  country  better. 
By  all  means  publish  these  letters,  together  with  your 
illuminating  replies,  so  that  they  may  serve  as  a  torch 
to  others  who  have  fallen  into  the  same  errors." 

He  said  much  more,  which,  as  it  properly  belongs 
to  the  epilog  of  this  book,  will  be  found  in  the  last 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  II 

IDEALISM 

ABOUT  a  week  had  gone  by  during  which  Miss 
Jones  read  the  letters  to  Latin  America  in  her 
office  at  the  Censor's  Bureau,  when  the  first  one 
written  by  the  Chilean  in  Chicago  reached  her  hands. 
Omitting  the  parts  relating  purely  to  family  matters, 
the  following  pages  are  those  which  particularly  arrested 
her  attention: 

Chicago,  111., ,  1918. 

My  dearest: — 


I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  because  everything  in 
this  country  is  so  unlike  Europe,  especially  Paris,  or 
because  I  have  come  here  without  you  and  the  little 
ones,  but  the  fact  is  that  this  North  American  world 
seems  to  me  simply  horrible.  I  don't  think  it  will  ever 
be  worth  while  to  bring  you  here.  When  the  war  is 
over  we  shall  resume  our  visits  to  Paris  every  winter. 
What  a  pity  it  is  that  this  war  should  have  diverted 
the  course  of  Chilean  travel  from  Europe  to  this  country, 
though  doubtless  a  superficial  mind,  judging  only  by 
appearances,  may  find  real  grandeur  in  this  purely  ma- 
terial triumph  of  the  United  States.  I  have  already 
met  some  Chileans  who  are  intoxicated  with  enthusiasm 

7 


8  TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

for  this  country,  a  disposition  that  may  do  ns  incalcu- 
lable harm  in  the  future.  This  is  the  country  of  dollars 
and  cents.  Every  one  here  is  a  money-maker.  Business 
is  the  God  of  the  country.  With  us  the  first  question 
of  friends  when  they  meet  is:  "How  is  your  family?" 
Here  the  usual  greeting  is:  "How  is  business?''  All 
men  here  are  like  race-horses  to  which  the  beauty  of  the 
grand  panorama  past  which  they  run  means  nothing. 
They  rush  along  unbridled,  blinded  by  their  mad  haste 
to  reach  the  goal,  which  is — the  dollar,  the  mere  dollar, 
the  hundred  dollars,  the  thousand  dollars,  the  millions, 
yes,  even  the  billions  of  dollars. 

This  is  the  country  of  quantity,  not  quality.  It  is  the 
country  of  the  Ingersoll  one-dollar  watch  and  of  the 
three-hundred  dollar  Ford  automobile. 

There  is  here  a  veritable  cult  for  speed.  They  have 
the  fastest  train  in  the  world,  and  until  lately,  they  used 
to  pay  a  forfeit  to  the  passengers  for  every  minute  of  de- 
lay in  arrival  at  their  destination.  Automobiles  take  the 
dead  at  full  speed  to  the  cemetery.  There  are  express 
elevators  which  take  you  up  ten  floors  in  one  gulp.  The 
shoemakers  have  signs  on  their  shop  fronts,  offering  to 
half-sole  your  shoes  while  you  wait,  and  tailors  clean 
and  press  your  clothes  as  quickly.  At  the  barber's 
shop  a  customer  has  his  hair  cut,  his  nails  trimmed  and 
his  shoes  cleaned  at  the  same  time.  A  Frenchman  won- 
ders why  Americans  have  not  invented  a  machine  to 
permit  them  to  work  with  their  feet  while  they  speak 
over  the  phone. 

I  have  read  this  humorous  anecdote,  a  mere  exaggera- 
tion of  the  reality,  in  one  of  their  magazines:  Two 
insurance  salesmen  happened  to  call  at  the  same  time 
on  a  man  to  get  him  to  take  out  a  life-policy.    He  ob- 


IDEALISM  9 

jected  that  in  case  of  his  death  his  wife  might  have 
difficulty  in  collecting  the  insurance  money.  One  of 
the  salesmen  told  him  that  if  he  died  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  his  wife  would  receive  the  money  at  four. 
"We  do  better  than  that/'  said  the  other  agent;  "our 
offices  are  on  the  third  floor  of  the  building.  A  client 
of  ours  had  his  office  on  the  thirteenth  floor.  He  had 
the  misfortune  to  fall  out  of  his  window  to  the  street, 
and  as  he  passed  in  front  of  our  window  he  was  handed 
a  check  for  the  amount  of  his  insurance  with  our  cour- 
teous expression  of  regret." 

Leisure  is  not  understood  in  this  country.  To  tell  an 
American  that  we  close  our  offices  and  shops  at  the 
luncheon  hour  would  be  to  invite  him  to  deafen  you 
with  his  shouts  of  laughter.  When  a  man  is  over  forty 
he  is  looked  down  upon;  he  is  worn  out  and  good  for 
nothing.  In  our  country  women  try  to  deceive  you 
about  their  age ;  they  want  to  be  thought  younger.  Here 
it  is  the  men  who  lie  about  their  age,  in  order  to  keep 
their  jobs  or  get  new  ones,  because  money  is  worth  more 
than  men. 

You  know  the  story  of  one  of  our  countrymen  who 
was  drowning  in  the  sea.  Two  Americans  were  watch- 
ing him  from  the  shore  as  he  struggled  for  life.  One 
of  us,  directly  he  caught  sight  of  the  accident,  hastened 
to  the  rescue;  but  one  of  the  Americans  stopped  him, 
saying:  "No,  let  him  alone.  We  have  made  a  bet:  I 
say  he  will  drown,  and  my  friend  thinks  he  will  reach 
the  shore." 

You  have  no  idea  what  a  world  of  truth  there  is  in 
this  anecdote.  Money,  money!  That  is  first  and  last 
in  this  country.  Cities  are  built  solely  at  the  call  of 
moneyed  propositions.    Here  in  Chicago  there  is  a  service 


10        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

of  elevated  trains,  carried  over  the  streets  on  a  hideous 
structure  of  steel,  which  makes  their  horrible  streets 
still  uglier.  Why  have  they  not  made  a  subway  like 
those  of  Paris,  London  and  Buenos  Aires,  as  they  are 
immensely  rich?  Simply  because  it  does  not  matter  to 
them  that  the  streets  are  ugly.  The  important  thing 
for  them  is  to  tear  through  them  quickly. 

Chicago  is  beautiful  in  parts,  Michigan  Avenue,  for 
instance,  where  my  hotel,  the  best  in  the  city,  is  located. 
But  alongside  such  a  building  as  the  Public  Library 
one  sees  gross  advertisements  or  offensive  signs  that  call 
attention  to  some  automobile  tires  or  some  special  brand 
of  pork  from  the  packing-houses  of  Armour  or  Swift. 
As  I  tell  you,  Michigan  Avenue  is  beautiful,  but  in  its 
most  beautiful  part  it  is  cut  off  by  an  enormous  disfigur- 
ing soap  factory.  A  Yankee  monument;  it  takes  the 
place  of  a  piece  of  sculpture  in  the  Champs  Elysees. 

Weight,  bulk  and  magnitude  so  dominate  some  super- 
ficial minds  that  they  look  upon  a  rigid  sky-scraper  of 
forty  stories,  built  without  art  or  grace,  as  a  greater 
achievement  than  a  Notre  Dame,  a  Museum  of  Cluny,  an 
Alhambra  or  a  Milan  Cathedral. 

The  fact  that  men  are  appraised  here  only  for  their 
money  is  crystallized  even  in  their  language.  We  say: 
"Una  persona  tiene  un  millon  de  pesos."  The  French 
say:  "Quelqu'un  possede  un  million  de  piastres."  The 
Germans  say : ' '  Der  Mann  hat  eine  Million  Mark. ' '  Nat- 
urally, to  possess  a  million  dollars  is  something  acci- 
dental, like  having  a  house  or  an  estate;  but  here  they 
say  of  a  man:  "He  is  worth  a  million  dollars,"  which 
means  that  this  is  his  value,  the  public's  appraisement 
of  him.  He  is  worth  as  much  as  the  number  of  his 
dollars. 


IDEALISM  11 

I  have  not  yet  recovered  from  my  surprise  at  the 
campaign  for  the  second  war  loan  launched  here  some 
time  ago,  just  after  my  arrival  in  Chicago.  It  was 
worth  seeing.  The  highest  men  in  office  issued  public 
notices  such  as  would  be  published  by  the  manager  of 
the  advertising  department  of  some  great  patent-medi- 
cine factory.  In  the  course  of  this  campaign  one  day 
was  set  aside  throughout  the  nation  for  the  special  pur- 
pose of  selling  bonds,  and  in  the  editorials  of  the  news- 
papers this  day  was  compared  with  that  of  the  Cele- 
bration of  Independence.  Just  think  of  it:  on  that 
day  no  battle  was  won,  no  act  of  heroism  was  recorded, 
only  money  was  loaned  to  the  government  at  a  good 
rate  of  interest. 

To-day  I  passed  by  a  store  where  they  sell  orthopedic 
goods:  trusses  for  hernias  and  wooden  legs  and  arms. 
In  the  window  was  a  plaster  copy  of  the  Venus  of  Milo 
all  disfigured  by  the  belts  to  which  they  wished  to  call 
attention.  Have  you  ever  seen  such  an  impertinence? 
The  prototype  of  beauty,  youth  and  health  marred  with 
belts  and  trusses  for  the  deformed!  It  would  not  sur- 
prise me  to  come  across  an  advertisement  in  which  a 
plaster  for  chilblains  is  applied  to  the  bare  foot  of  some 
such  a  marble  as  that  in  which  Chapu  gave  life  to  Joan 
of  Arc.  Everywhere  one  finds  good  taste  sacrificed  to 
business.  They  do  not  appear  capable  of  arranging  a 
window-display  artistically  as  in  Paris.  I  have  seen 
shop  windows  piled  two  or  three  yards  high  with  candies, 
nuts  or  button-hooks. 

Their  post-card  views  of  cities  are  barbarously  ugly 
and  daubed  with  the  most  shrieking  colors.  Why  can 
they  not  produce  something  in  this  line  like  the  French  ? 
Because  good  taste  is  not  marketable.    There  is  through- 


12        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

out  the  country  an  organized  school  of  bad  taste.  The 
newspapers  publish  in  their  Sunday  editions  a  colored 
section  for  children,  in  which  their  elders  also  delight, 
These  are  most  irritating  to  persons  of  refinement.  In 
our  country  nothing  short  of  a  revival  of  the  Inquisition 
to  burn  these  papers  would  suffice  if  any  one  should 
publish  such  atrocities. 

The  same  is  true  of  American  music,  which  is  rasping 
and  calculated  to  tear  the  nerves.  Its  name  describes 
it  well:  ragtime.  Their  national  anthem  is  a  proof  of 
their  musical  poverty.  Our  ears,  accustomed  as  they 
are  to  our  own  beautiful  national  anthem,  or  to  the 
Marseillaise,  protest  indignantly  against  this  national 
hymn  of  a  hundred  million  people  in  North  America. 

George  MacManus  is  a  talented  cartoonist  who  con- 
tributes to  one  of  the  Chicago  daily  papers.  The  other 
day  his  marvelous  pencil  created  a  witticism  which 
scarcely  exaggerates  the  theme.  "Mrs.  Jiggs  wants  you 
to  play  again,"  says  Mr.  Jiggs  to  the  pianist.  "It's 
rather  late,"  answers  the  musician,  "I  fear  it  will  annoy 
your  neighbors."  "Oh!  That's  all  right.  They've  got 
a  dog  that  howls  all  night." 

Some  one  has  said— in  order  to  explain  certain  traits 
in  the  American  character— that  the  Americans  like  to 
be  humbugged.  I  think  they  also  like  to  be  annoyed. 
That  is  why  they  buy  pianos  for  their  girls.  But,  now 
and  then,  they  get  tired  of  it.  Here  is  another  funny 
dialog  by  the  same  artist:  Mrs.  Jiggs  awakens  her  hus- 
band at  midnight.  "There  is  a  burglar  in  the  parlor," 
she  says.  "I  think  he  is  trying  to  steal  the  piano." 
"I'll  go  down  and  see,"  says  her  husband.  "Don't  do 
anything  rash,"  she  called  after  him.    "Certainly  not; 


IDEALISM  13 

but  you  don't  suppose  the  man  can  get  that  piano  out 
without  help,  do  you  V '  . 

Parvenus,  people  who  have  made  their  money  sud- 
denly and  who  do  not  know  how  to  use  it,  they  pile  up 
everywhere  mountains  of  valuable  material  without  art, 
without  taste,  and  they  brag  of  what  it  cost.  They  talk 
here  for  instance,  of  a  half  million  dollar  production 
for  a  play  whose  setting  cost  all  that  money,  a  two  mil- 
lion  dollar  building,  a  five  million  dollar  hotel. 

I  am  writing  to  you  from  my  balcony  which  looks 
out  upon  Lake  Michigan.  In  my  conception  this  lake 
is  the  most  beautiful  bit  of  Chicago.  But  the  Yankees 
did  not  make  the  lake,  they  cannot  call  it  a  billion 
dollar  lake,  and  so  they  have  spoiled  its  view  frorn  the 
city  by  a  horrible  railroad  with  a  wide  expanse  of  iron 
rails,  where  a  belt  of  smoke  takes  the  place  of  a  splendid 

park. 

Everything  here  is  estimated  by  its  value  in  dollars 
and  cents,  including  love.    Will  you  wonder  when  I  tell 
you  that  a  woman  may  prosecute  a  man  in  a  court  of 
justice  if  he  has  broken  his  promise  to  marry   her? 
Furthermore  the  court  estimates  the  amount  of  damage 
done  to  the  sentiments  of  his  client  in  so  many  thousand 
dollars;  and  so  with  a  cash  equivalent  for  her  sweet- 
heart the  lady  is  quite  resigned,  nay,  even  happy.    This 
occurs  so  often  that  almost  any  daily  paper  will  publish 
a  report  of  one  of  these  cases  of  breach  of  promise,  and 
frequently  the  women  who  have  taken  advantage  of 
such  means  to  make  capital  out  of  their  shattered  illu- 
sions are  wealthy,  prominent  women.     I  do  not  know 
that  such  a  thing  has  ever  occurred  in  any  part  of  Latin 
America.    What  happens  there  in  these  cases  is  that  the 
bride  sends  back  to  the  man  who  was  to  marry  her,  along 


14        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

with  his  love  letters,  any  jewels  or  other  gifts  that  she 
may  have  received  from  him. 

Money-makers  and  practical  men,  they  have  pro- 
duced no  Watt  or  Papin  to  discover  the  force  of  water's 
expansion  into  steam,  but  they  have  had  a  Fulton,  who 
applied  it  to  industrial  ends.  Science  is  not  studied  here 
for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  money.  To  invent 
an  automatic  button  to  hold  in  place  the  collar  of  a  shirt 
gives  better  money  returns  than  to  discover  the  laws  of 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  consequently  here  they 
give  themselves  to  the  task  of  inventing  the  automatic 
button  that  shall  keep  in  place  the  shirt  collar. 

Their  superficial  and  almost  always  futile  literary 
magazines  fill  three-fourths  of  their  pages  with  "ads." 
The  newspapers  do  the  same.  In  their  first  page  they 
boast  every  day  of  the  number  of  columns  of  advertising 
published  by  them.  A  French  newspaper,  like  Le  Matin 
could  not  survive  here.  And  we,  unhappily,  are  aping 
in  our  country  the  Yankee  papers. 

A  materialistic  people,  a  people  whose  only  thought 
is  of  money,  who  dream  of  money,  who  exploit  beauty, 
who  make  of  religion  a  trade— later  I  will  tell  you  of 
Billy  Sunday  and  other  exploiters  of  religion— a  metal- 
ized  nation  which  does  not  scruple  to  coin  love,  will  not 
hesitate  to  trade  in  justice,  honor,  truth  and  all  the 
most  sacred  of  the  Old  World  ideals,  standards  that 
European  civilization  has  always  kept  apart  from  the 
consideration  of  dollars  and  cents. 


You  must  not  be  misled  by  the  frequent  news  in  the 
papers  regarding  some  endowments  or  philanthropic 
gifts.     This  is  "advertising;"  it  brings  more  money,  it 


IDEALISM  15 

is  a  sound  investment.  Here  is  an  item  published  the 
other  day  in  one  of  their  papers.  I  must  borrow  from 
their  own  humor  to  illustrate  my  statements.  Of  course, 
it  is  intended  for  a  joke,  but  do  not  forget  that  American 
jests  are  a  reflection  of  reality.  A  man,  making  his 
last  will  and  testament,  leaves  five  thousand  dollars  to 
each  of  his  servants  who  have  been  with  him  for  more 
than  ten  years.  "But  we  have  no  servants  who  have 
stayed  so  long  as  that, "  ob j  ects  his  wife.  ' '  Never  mind, ' ' 
replies  the  philanthropist,  "it  will  look  well  in  the 
papers.* ' 

With  the  most  affectionate  greetings  to  all,  and  a 
thousand  kisses 

from  your  adoring  husband, 


Miss  Jones  read  this  letter  through  twice.  Should  she 
let  it  go  forward,  or  should  she  detain  it  as  harmful 
propaganda  to  her  country?  Finally  she  made  up  her 
mind  to  leave  it  on  her  desk  until  the  following  day. 

That  night,  at  home,  she  sat  for  hours  writing  a  letter 
addressed  to  the  same  lady  who  would  receive  that  other 
letter  now  lying  at  her  office.  She  wrote  unceasingly, 
except,  when  rising  from  her  seat,  she  consulted  a  vol- 
ume on  the  shelves  of  her  library. 

This  is  what  she  wrote  and  sent  off  next  day  inclosed 
with  the  letter  which  a  woman  in  a  far  distant  land 
was  doubtless  anxiously  expecting  from  her  husband. 

Madam : 

Something  that  never  has  happened  before  in  my 
country  has  now  come  to  pass ;  our  government  has  been 


16        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

compelled  to  appoint  persons  whose  task  it  is  to  violate 
the  private  correspondence  to  foreign  countries.  It  has 
fallen  to  my  lot  to  read  what  your  husband  has  written 
you,  and  I  must  confess  that  what  he  says  about  my 
country  astonishes  me  greatly.  The  letter  is  not  one 
that  must  be  intercepted  by  the  censorship,  but  I  venture 
to  think  that  neither  you  nor  your  husband  will  take 
it  amiss  if  I  make  some  comment  upon  the  impressions 
he  has  conveyed  to  you.  I  am  ready  to  believe  that  he 
writes  in  all  good  faith,  and  in  the  same  spirit  I  take 
the  liberty  to  correct  some  of  his  mistaken  deductions. 
Pardon  me,  then,  this  intrusion  into  your  intimate  cor- 
respondence, of  which  I  am  guilty,  impelled  thereto  by 
an  irresistible  sense  of  justice. 

I  do  not  think  that  my  country  can  truthfully  be  ac- 
cused of  materialism,  or  that  it  worships  no  other  God 
than  the  dollar.  I  am  convinced,  on  the  contrary,  that 
my  native  land  is  the  most  idealistic  in  all  the  world, 
and  that  your  husband  has  lacked  both  time  and  oppor- 
tunity to  make  the  searching  investigation  required  to 
warrant  so  dogmatic  a  statement. 

Let  me  remind  you,  madam,  that  no  sooner  did  we 
learn  of  the  Belgian  horrors  than  a  unanimous  impulse 
was  felt  throughout  our  whole  republic  to  lend  a  help- 
ing hand  to  the  cruelly  stricken  kingdom,  now  a  land 
of  blighted  firesides;  and  a  squadron  sailed  from  New 
York  laden  with  the  most  substantial  proofs  of  Ameri- 
can generosity.  My  country  gave  millions  to  succor  the 
unfortunate  in  distant  lands.  This  generous  response 
to  need  brought  about  by  calamity  is  characteristic  of 
my  people,  whether  in  regard  to  misfortune  within  our 
own  national  boundaries,  such  as  the  earthquake  at 
San  Francisco,  or  in  the  case  of  far  off  disaster,  like  that 


IDEALISM  17 

of  the  volcanic  eruption  at  Messina.  The  funds  collected 
by  private  initiative  for  San  Francisco  amounted  in  an 
incredibly  short  time  to  ten  million  dollars,  and  if  no 
more  was  sent  it  was  because  the  city  earnestly  protested 
that  no  more  was  needed.  Was  this  a  case  of  material- 
ism, madam?  Was  this  the  sordid  egoism  of  vulgar 
money-makers?  It  cannot  even  be  alleged  that  this 
money  was  contributed  with  a  view  to  self-advertise- 
ment, as  many  of  these  donations  were  absolutely  anony- 
mous. 

The  spirit  of  giving,  madam,  of  giving  for  the  sake 
of  others,  is  undoubtedly  a  characteristic  trait  of  our  na- 
tional soul.  Millionaires  give  part  of  their  fortunes  for 
the  welfare  of  the  community.  Carnegie  and  Rockefeller 
are,  if  you  like,  hunters  of  the  dollar  who  have  amassed 
millions;  but  the  first  has  given  two  hundred  million 
dollars  to  establish  libraries  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
and  the  second  has  with  forty  million  dollars  created  the 
University  of  Chicago,  one  of  the  most  sumptuous  in 
the  world.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  every  American 
millionaire.  Ford's  peace  expedition  may  have  been 
foolish,  but  this  was  the  folly  of  a  dreamer,  of  an  idealist, 
not  that  of  a  money-grubber. 

Yes,  it  might  be  said  that  he  did  it  as  a  means  of  ad- 
vertising his  automobiles,  which  need  a  world-wide 
market.  Of  course,  madam,  I  do  not  wish  to  rank  your 
husband  with  those  self-appointed  arbiters  of  human 
actions  who  think  that  a  millionaire,  in  giving  away  his 
millions,  always  either  wants  advertisement  or  needs  to 
silence  his  conscience.  They  never  believe  that  a  good 
action  was  done  for  its  own  sake.  According  to  them, 
Christ  was  advertising  Himself  when  He  carried  His  own 
cross.    When  these  cynics  see  a  youth  whispering  to  a 


18        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

maiden  in  the  woods,  they  think  a  plot  is  being  hatched 
to  harm  some  one.  The  forest,  the  blue  sky,  the  crystal 
brook,  the  youthful  charm  and  shy  gladness  of  the  happy 
pair  have  no  power  to  suggest  to  these  parodists  of 
human  dreams  that  here  is  no  conspiracy,  but  a  revela- 
tion of  love. 

In  one  decade  private  individuals  have  donated  over 
one  hundred  million  dollars  for  education  in  my  country. 
In  the  year  1916  alone,  private  initiative  contributed  a 
thousand  million  dollars  among  us  for  purposes  of  com- 
mon welfare.  Eleven  out  of  these  millions  were  sent  to 
Belgium  inside  of  twelve  months.  This  year  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  asked  the  country  for  thirty-five  millions,  and  the 
country  gave  fifty  millions.  They  are  going  to  ask  for 
much  more.  This  year  also  the  Red  Cross  opened  a 
second  campaign,  in  which  the  American  public  was 
asked  for  a  hundred  millions.  In  the  seven  days  during 
which  the  campaign  lasted  one  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions were  received. 

This  readiness  to  curtail  private  fortunes  for  the 
benefit  of  the  masses  is  not  to  be  found  to  the  same  ex- 
tent in  any  other  country.  Ferrero,  the  Italian  sociol- 
ogist, who  recognizes  and  admires  this  fact,  says  that 
this  generous  spirit  is  not  apparent  in  Europe,  com- 
posed as  that  continent  is  of  highly  developed  countries 
where  the  state  has  taken  charge  of  nearly  all  functions 
proper  to  the  public  weal ;  and  he  reminds  us  that  some- 
thing similar  occurred  in  ancient  Rome.  The  lavishing 
of  private  fortunes  for  the  public  benefit  is  characteristic 
of  young  countries  enjoying  great  prosperity,  he  adds. 
But  Argentina  and  Brazil  are  young  countries  of  great 
material  prosperity,  and  they  do  not  offer  a  phenomenon 
analogous  to  that  of  the  United  States.    Moreover,  one 


IDEALISM  19 

of  the  public  functions  in  the  United  States  which  owes 
most  to  private  fortunes  has  been  that  of  education,  in 
the  form  of  schools,  universities  and  libraries,  yet  we 
must  admit  that  the  state  has  always  been  generous  in 
our  country  for  the  advancement  of  institutions  of  learn- 
ing. The  Public  Library  of  Chicago,  with  branches  in 
all  parts  of  the  city,  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  in  the 
world;  nevertheless,  private  initiative  has  established 
there  other  opulent  public  libraries  like  those  of  New- 
berry and  John  Crerar.  Private  initiative  does  not 
here  fill  a  neglected  want,  but  supplements  official  en- 
terprise, a  form  of  assistance  that  has  been  woefully 
lacking  in  old  Europe. 

This  spirit  of  giving  is  inherent  in  our  race,  in  our 
people.  The  little  child  begins  to  learn  it  at  the  foot 
of  his  first  Christmas  tree  laden  with  toys.  Perhaps  no 
other  country  has  set  apart  so  many  days  on  which  to 
give  vent  to  this  spirit :  Christmas,  New  Year 's,  Easter, 
Valentine's  and  Mother's  day.  If  your  husband  would 
enter  any  one  of  the  numerous  flower-stores  in  any  of 
our  cities,  he  would  see  how  many  orders  come  in  every 
minute  for  flowers  to  be  sent  from  home  to  home  as 
messages  of  friendship.  Every  sick  person  at  home 
or  in  the  hospital  has  his  bed  surrounded  with  flowers, 
which  friends  have  sent  him.  This  is  much  more  common 
here  than  in  Latin  America  or  in  any  other  part  of  the 
world. 

To  appreciate  these  traits  of  the  gentle  American 
character,  it  is  necessary  to  live  in  this  country,  not  in 
a  hotel,  transiently,  but  in  personal  contact  with  our 
home  life. 

Nor  is  this  spirit  of  generous  giving  the  only  disa- 
vowal of  your  husband's  assertion  that  we  are  a  purely 


20        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

materialistic  people,  engaged  exclusively  in  the  making 
of  money,  and  capable  of  turning  all  to  account  for 
sordid  ends,  even  matters  of  love,  honor  and  justice. 

You  are  aware,  madam,  how  in  Belgium  and  in  north- 
ern France  this  dreadful  war  has  wiped  out,  not  only 
the  population  and  the  homes  of  the'  people,  but  also 
the  ancient  relics  of  art,    Longwy,  Louvain  and  Rheims 
have  been  destroyed,  and  if  your  husband  reads  the 
Chicago  papers,  he  will  have  seen  that  in  this  country  of 
money  getters,  where  the  meaning  of  beauty  is  not  un- 
derstood, there  has  been  formed  a  society,  the  aim  of 
which  is  to  gather  together  money  for  the  reconstruction 
of  such  monuments  of  art  as  the  Cathedral  of  Rheims. 
With  this  object  in  view  a  considerable  sum  of  money 
has  been  collected,  not  to  repair  some  monument  of  art 
in  Chicago,  but  to  do  so  in  cities  five  thousand  miles 
away;   and— please  note  this— from  people  who  have 
seen  these  monuments  only  in  photographs.  ^ 

Does  this  argue  a  purely  materialistic  spirit,  madam, 
or  the  worship  of  the  dollar? 

This  being  so,  it  is  not  surprising  that  you  should  ask 
why  Chicago  is  ugly,  and  why  the  people  tolerate  the 
existence  of  a  hideous  elevated  railroad  to  still  further 
deface  the  unsightly  streets.  You  will  naturally  inquire 
why  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  owns  a  station  in  full 
view  of  beautiful  Michigan  Avenue  that  would  be  a  dis- 
grace to  a  city  of  the  lowest  grade,  and  also  why  Chi- 
cago has  allowed  any  business  enterprise  to  rob  it  of  its 
Lake  front.  Let  us  admit  that  Chicago  is  partially  ugly, 
as  are  American  cities  in  general,  when  compared  with 
some  old  European  cities.  This  has  come  to  pass  be- 
cause in  this  country  of  rapid  growth  the  cities  have  de- 
veloped almost  spontaneously.     Buildings  have  had  to 


IDEALISM  21 

spring  up  as  if  bidden  by  a  magic  wand,  almost  as  a 
miners'  camp  grows  alongside  a  coal,  iron  or  copper 
mine.  The  men  who  build  the  first  houses  in  such  a  camp 
occupy  tents.  The  United  States  is  a  colossal  nation 
still  in  the  making,  and  in  a  measure  a  great  part  of 
the  population  that  has  arrived  in  millions  from  Europe 
still  live  in  tents. 

Nevertheless,  madam,  your  husband  has  failed  to  take 
into  consideration  how  much  is  being  done  in  my  country 
to  beautify  the  cities.     He  specially  mentions  Chicago, 
and  it  would  have  been  worth  his  while  to  know  that 
this  city  has  spent  millions  and  millions  to  make  itself 
hygienic  and  beautiful.    It  unquestionably  possesses  to- 
day the  most  extensive  and  most  beautiful  park  system 
in  the  world.    And  what  has  been  done  in  this  respect 
is  only  the  commencement ;  billions  will  be  spent  yet. 
Mr.  B.  T.  Ferguson  alone  has  presented  the  sum  of  one 
million  dollars  for  sculpture  to  ornament  the  city.    If 
your  husband  had  brought  your  children  to  Chicago,  and 
if  they  had  attended  a  public  school,  they  would  have 
used  text-books  in  which  plans  for  a  future  Chicago 
are  described.     They  would  have  seen  the  plans  for  a 
new  station  of  the  Illinois  Central,  which  is  to  be  made 
to  harmonize  with  the  new  Field  Museum,  a  magnificent 
building  of  marble;  they  would  have  found  a  design 
to  reclaim  the  Lake  front  by  the  addition  of  gardens, 
transforming  the  city  into  one  of  the  most  magnificent 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe.    He  would  then  have  seen 
how  civic  pride  may  be  awakened  in  the  children  as 
they  trace  the  story  of  the  city  beautiful,  from  the  days 
of  Athens  to  the   transformation   of  Paris  by  Baron 
Haussman.     And  believe  me,  madam,  Chicago  in  the 
near  future  is  going  to  be  one  of  the  most  attractive 


22        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

cities  in  the  universe,  not  only  for  its  commercial  op- 
portunities, as  it  is  to-day,  but  also  for  its  real  beauty. 
Chicago  will  be  the  Paris  of  the  future ;  a  spirit  so  ex- 
quisitely refined  as  the  sublime  Parisian,  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt, has  already  said:  "I  adore  Chicago;  it  is  the 
pulse  of  America."  She  was  capable  of  understanding 
at  its  true  value  this  new  species  of  beauty,  composed  of 
infinite  force  and  exuberant  virility. 

My  country  is  devoting  itself  with  untiring  enthusi- 
asm to  the  decoration  of  everything:  ports,  cities,  parks 
and  homes.  Lincoln  Highway  is  a  road  which  crosses  the 
continent,  and  will  be  a  matchless  Eden,  costing  millions 
of  dollars.  In  every  city  there  are  municipal  committees 
and  private  associations  for  the  fostering  of  civic  art. 
Models,  ideas,  lines  and  inspiration  are  being  imported 
from  Europe;  but  the  seal  of  Americanism  is  being 
added  in  every  case.  Your  husband  thinks  the  sky- 
scraper horrible.  I  find  in  it  a  special,  new  beauty:  the 
modern  obelisk  of  the  Titans  of  action.  The  Parisians 
have  in  their  Place  de  la  Concorde  an  Egyptian  obelisk, 
and  to  it  is  attributed  an  architectural  grace  sanctioned 
by  centuries  of  existence.  Our  skyscrapers  have  not 
had  time  to  be  beautified  by  tradition,  but  the  very  edi- 
fice of  the  hotel  in  which  your  husband  lives  in  Chicago 
is  worthy  to  figure  with  pride  among  such  classical  ex- 
amples of  architecture  as  the  Alhambra  and  Rheims 
Cathedral. 

The  love  of  art  for  art's  sake  grows  daily  among  us. 
When  the  war  which  has  enveloped  this  planet  first 
broke  out,  a  battalion  of  our  art  students  were  to  be 
found  in  Europe,  in  all  the  art  schools  of  Italy,  France 
and  Germany.  For  our  part,  we  have  founded  here  art 
schools  which  will  be  centers  of  attraction  for  the  whole 


IDEALISM  23 

world.  The  most  famous  musicians  of  the  universe  pass 
almost  their  whole  lives  among  us.  Chicago  maintains 
two  theaters  for  opera  alone,  and  if  it  is  true  that  my 
country  has  not  yet  given  birth  to  many  great  artists 
to  rival  with  those  of  the  European  civilization,  our 
democracy  is  nevertheless  beginning  to  create  men  and 
women  of  genius  able  to  interpret  the  new  spirit  of  hu- 
manity, the  spirit  of  the  new  world.  "We  are  now  busy 
in  mjaking  that  supreme^ work_o_f  art — democracy.  We^) 
are  cultivating  human  capacity  in  extenso.  Every  great 
r  genius  of  the  past  was,  in  some  degree,  the  result  of  an 
intensive  culture  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 
"In  our  country  we  have  reached  a  point  in  the  intensive 
cultivation  of  the  many  never  before  attempted  in  the 
world.  Wait  a  little  and  see  the  flowering  of  this  cul- 
ture. 

This,  madam,  explains  why  in  my  country  we  have 
tried  to  solve  first  the  problem  of  quantity  in  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  industry,  leaving  until  later  those 
of  quality.  If  the  mother  of  ten  children  is  ill  provided 
with  resources,  she  will  rather  give  bread  to  the  ten 
than  pie  to  three,  leaving  the  other  seven  with  nothing. 
That  is  to  say,  if  the  fate  of  all  of  them  interests  her 
equally;  but  if  she  has  favorites  or  accords  privileges, 
she  will  leave  seven  children  hungry  and  feast  the  other 
three.  The  opportunities  impartially  offered  to  all  the 
citizens  of  my  country  have  created  a  demand  for  articles 
of  luxury.  That  is  to  say,  in  my  country  we  manufac- 
ture for  all,  whereas  in  Europe  the  produce  of  labor 
is  still  to  some  extent  for  the  privileged  class  exclusively. 
Quantity  is  the  first  cry  of  democracy.  A  workman  may 
possess  and  does  possess  among  us  property  of  all  kinds : 
a  sewing-machine,  a  Victrola,  a  motor  car,  a  house,  just 


24        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

because  we  have  attended  to  the  problem  of  quantity  in 
the  first  place.  And  this  does  not  signify  that  we  have 
not  also  advanced  very  rapidly  with  the  improvement  of 
quality  at  the  same  time. 

Your  husband  makes  an  accusation  of  materialism 
against  our  country  for  certain  legal  prosecutions  called 
"breach  of  promise' '  cases  entered  into  by  women  who 
f  ask  as  compensation  large  sums  of  money.  In  this  he 
does  us  a  manifest  injustice.  The  conduct  of  some  of  our 
women  is  not  a  characteristic  trait  of  American  women 
in  general.  In  our  nation  of  a  hundred  million  inhabit- 
ants, every  ordinary  incident  of  our  daily  life  does  not 
get  into  the  newspapers,  but,  of  course,  only  what  is  out 
of  the  ordinary.  One  of  our  most  famous  journalists 
has  said  that  when  a  dog  bites  a  man,  that  is  not  news ; 
but  when  a  man  bites  a  dog,  that  is  news.  If  John 
Smith,  an  unknown  laborer  of  any  town  or  city,  dies 
in  his  bed  of  pneumonia  or  tuberculosis,  the  incident 
does  not  occupy  a  line  of  space  in  the  local  paper ;  but 
if  John  Smith,  an  unknown  laborer,  should  be  lifted  up 
by  a  hurricane  and  deposited  in  fragments  some  twenty 
miles  away,  all  the  papers  of  the  country  would  publish 
the  notice  of  his  death  on  the  front  page.  So  it  is  with 
everything. 

The  tranquil  happiness  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
homes,  the  promises  of  marriage  kept  and  those  broken 
for  some  reason  and  the  consequences  silently  endured, 
are  not  chronicled  in  the  daily  press.  The  exceptional 
case  of  some  girl  who  sues  for  twenty,  or  fifty,  or  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  because  a  man  has  failed  to 
keep  his  promise  to  marry  her  is  published  by  the  papers 
eager  to  dilate  upon  the  unusual  items  arising  out  of 
our  complex  American  life.     These  are  really  isolated 


IDEALISM  25 

cases,  madam,  in  which  women,  usually  of  the  upper 
classes,  avail  themselves  of  the  ample  protection  which 
our  laws  offer  them.  If  there  were  similar  laws  in  other 
countries  offering  a  like  protection  there  would  be  plenty 
of  women  to  take  advantage  of  them.  Without  making 
too  much  of  this  one  detail,  I  would  like  to  add  that  only 
a  short  time  ago  I  read  in  one  of  our  newspapers  of  a 
young  lady  from  Chile,  of  idealistic  Spanish  ancestry, 
who  had  presented  herself  in  our  courts  asking  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  damages  in  a  breach  of  promise 
prosecution  of  one  of  my  countrymen. 

Your  husband  says,  madam,  that  science  is  not  stud- 
ied here  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  money. 
The  expansive  force  of  steam  was  not  discovered  in 
this  country,  but  only  one  of  its  practical  applications. 
Yes,  madam,  we  are  people  of  a  practical  idealism;  we 
Jare  constructive  dreamers.  The  sanitation  of  Panama 
was  a  work  of  practical  idealism,  as  was  the  devotion  of 
the  American  doctor,  who,  in  seeking  means  to  combat 
the  ravages  of  swamp-fever,  discovered  the  poison-bear- 
ing mosquito,  and  died  a  victim  of  his  idealism. 

The  series  of  endowed  institutions  in  this  country,  cre- 
ated for  the  purpose  of  making  investigations  of  all 
kinds,  not  for  business  ends,  not  for  making  money,  but 
to  lavish  it  at  the  call  of  the  common  welfare,  would  fill 
a  list  long  enough  to  cover  many  of  these  pages.  The 
Carnegie  Institute  in  Washington  owns  forty-two  mil- 
lion dollars,  and  the  interest  of  this  fund  is  used  for 
scientific,  geographical  or  purely  scholastic  investigation. 
The  Carnegie  Fund  for  International  Peace,  with  ten 
million  dollars,  has  for  its  object  the  investigation  and 
economic  causes  of  war.  It  has  a  department  of  edu- 
cational exchange  which  pays  foreign  professors  to  give 


26        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

courses  in  the  United  States.  The  Rockefeller  Institute 
for  medical  investigation  in  New  York  is  a  center  of 
inquiry  into  the  causes  of  disease  for  its  prevention  and 
cure.  The  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  with  a  fund  of  ten 
million  dollars,  has  for  its  object  the  investigation  and 
suppression  of  the  cause  of  poverty  and  ignorance.  I 
shall  not  continue,  madam,  to  name  institutions  of  this 
type  for  fear  of  tiring  you  with  long,  dry  statistics,  but 
I  ask  j^ou,  when  you  gaze  at  the  summit  of  San  Cristobal 
Hill  in  Santiago,  to  remember  that  the  Astronomical 
Observatory  which  is  there  was  erected  and  is  being 
maintained  by  money  from  this  country,  and  that  our 
astronomers,  who  live  there  like  hermits,  studying  the 
stars,  are  not  exactly  looking  for  money  in  the  heavenly 
constellations. 

We  are  eager,  it  is  true,  to  make  money,  to  acquire 
wealth  by  means  of  work  and  effort,  because  money  is 
the  value  resulting  from  work  and  effort;  but  at  the 
same  time  there  is  in  us  a  passion  for  spending  this 
money  more  and  more  directly  for  the  common  welfare. 
Nowhere  is  the  social  role  of  money  better  understood 
than  here ;  nowhere  else  are  more  dollars  made  to  work 
for  universities,  schools,  libraries  and  settlements.  The 
passion  for  money  in  my  country  is  largely  idealistic. 
This  may  not  be  so  apparent  in  the  American  of  the  first 
{generation,  but  it  is  quite  true  of  Americans  whose  spirit 
*has  lived  here  for  generations  past.  Moliere  could  not 
have  written  L'Avare  here,  nor  could  Shakespeare  have 
found  here  a  Shylock  for  his  Merchant  of  Venice. 

My  country  materialistic!  Is  a  people  materialistic 
which  has  such  unlimited  faith  in  education  that  they 
take  it  with  equal  fervor  to  the  negroes  and  redskins  of 
America  as  to  the  Malays  of  the  Philippines,  the  Latins 


IDEALISM  27 

of  Porto  Eico  and  the  Esquimaux  of  Alaska?  Can  a 
nation  be  called  materialistic  which  sends  religious  mis- 
sions to  all  the  confines  of  the  universe !  Are  they  ma- 
terialistic who  would  abolish  the  consumption  of  alcohol 
in  spite  of  the  wealth  and  influence  of  the  liquor  inter- 
ests? Can  a  people  be  called  materialistic  which  com- 
bats vice  in  all  its  forms  with  untiring  zeal,  vigorously 
restraining  a  practice  officially  tolerated  almost  every- 
where else  in  the  world,  in  pursuit  of  the  idealistic 
dream  to  abolish  the  prostitution  of  the  flesh?  Is  it 
materialistic  to  make  of  every  immigrant  unable  to 
read  and  write  a  citizen  with  electoral  rights  equal  to 
those  of  the  direct  descendants  of  the  first  colonists? 
Is  materialistic  a  people  which  gives  the  suffrage  to 
women,  together  with  all  those  prerogatives  which  have 
been  man's  by  tradition  in  all  the  world? 

Finally,  madam,  why  are  the  United  States  taking 
part  in  this  war  of  the  old  world  ?  Why  have  we  aban- 
doned the  traditions  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  de- 
mand that  Europe  shall  not  intervene  in  the  affairs  of 
the  new  world,  offering  at  the  same  time  to  refrain  from 
interference  in  old  world  affairs?  "Why  send  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  citizens  to  shed  their  blood  in  France 
and  spend  billions  of  dollars,  if  not  in  response  to  a  call 
of  burning  idealism  for  the  defense  of  liberty,  justice  and 
democracy  in  the  world?  Why  have  the  millionaires 
acquiesced  with  smiling  affability  to  the  imposition  of  a 
burden  amounting  to  sixty  per  cent,  of  their  revenues 
as  a  contribution  to  the  maintenance  of  this  war  in 
another  continent?  Why  have  the  sons  of  the  million- 
aires vied  for  places  in  the  aviation  corps,  offering  the 
hey-day  of  their  youth  on  the  altar  of  an  ideal  ? 

The  French  philosopher,  Henry  Bergson,  in  an  ad- 


28        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

dress  delivered  October,  1917,  to  the  members  of  the 
American  and  English  Red  Cross  in  Paris,  said  in  part : 

"Any  one  of  us  who  has  crossed  the  Atlantic  is  be- 
lieved to  have  discovered  America,  and  is  expected  to 
give  an  account  of  his  discovery.  Such  was  my  case,  a 
few  years  ago.  Called  upon  to  give  an  opinion  of  the 
American  people,  I  told  the  audience  that  there  was 
probably  no  country  in  the  world  where  material  in- 
terest was  less  considered,  where  money  was  less  cared 
for,  where  the  highest  ideals  more  thoroughly  and  con- 
tinually penetrate  and  permeate  every  day  life.  Amer- 
ica, I  said,  is  the  land  of  idealism.  The  lecture  was 
listened  to  favorably,  because,  over  here,  we  have  al- 
ways been  fond  of  America;  yet  when  it  was  over 
a  man  came  up  to  me  and  said:  "I  don't  know  your 
books,  sir,  but  judging  by  the  way  you  spoke  of  the 
American  people,  I  guess  that  you  belong,  as  a  philoso- 
pher, to  the  optimistic  school.'  I  have  not  met  the  gen- 
tleman since ;  but  I  am  perfectly  sure  that,  seeing  what 
the  Americans  are  doing  and  have  already  done  in  the 
present  war,  he  will  never  again  venture  guessing  to 
what  school  a  philosopher  belongs." 

Tn  the  midst  of  fervent  acclamation  on  the  part  of 
his  fellow-citizens,  President  Wilson  uttered  these  words, 
which  should  be  graven  in  letters  of  gold  in  the  history 
of  mankind : 

"The  world  must  be  made  safe  for  democracy.  Its 
peace  must  be  planted  upon  the  tested  foundations  of 
political  liberty.  We  have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We 
desire  no  conquest,  no  dominion.  We  seek  no  indem- 
nities for  ourselves,  no  material  compensation  for  the 
sacrifices  we  shall  freely  make.  We  shall  be  satisfied 
when  these  rights  have  been  made  as  secure  as  the  faith 
and  the  freedom  of  nations  can  make  them.  But  the 
right  is  more  precious  than  peace,  and  we  shall  fight  for 


IDEALISM  29 

things  which  we  have  always  carried  nearest  our  hearts 
—for  democracy,  for  the  right  of  those  who  submit  to 
authority  to  have  a  voice  in  their  own  governments,  for 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  small  nations,  for  a  universal 
dominion  of  right,  by  such  a  concert  of  free  peoples  as 
shall  bring  peace  and  safety  to  all  nations  and  make  the 
world  itself  at  last  free.  To  such  a  task  we  can  dedicate 
our  lives  and  our  fortunes,  everything  that  we  are  and 
everything  that  we  have,  with  the  pride  of  those  who 
know  that  the  day  has  come  when  America  is  privileged 
to  spend  her  blood  and  her  might  for  the  principles  that 
gave  her  birth  and  happiness  and  the  peace  which  she 
has  treasured." 

I  leave  it  to  you,  madam,  to  say  whether  these  are 
the  words  of  a  sordid  materialism,  words  uttered  by  a 
president,  in  a  democracy,  and  acclaimed  by  a  whole 
people.  Does  it  not  seem  to  you,  madam,  that  Wilson 
is  the  poet  of  international  politics? 

I  could  write  many  pages  on  this  theme,  but  I  think 
that  what  I  have  said  will  suffice  to  show  you  that  we 
are  not  a  materialistic  people,  mere  money-grubbers. 
Rather  do  I  think  that  a  Cervantes  is  wanted  to  write 
a  Don  Quixote  of  the  twentieth  century,  in  which  our 
country  is  shown  gallantly  fighting  for  high,  shadowy 
ideals  with  such  tenacity,  faith  and  generosity  and  with 
such  a  spirit  of  sacrifice  that  will  turn  the  distant  cloud- 
land  of  our  dreams  into  a  radiant  sun  of  reality. 

I  beg  you  once  again,  madam,  to  excuse  this  intrusion 
in  your  private  correspondence,  but  I  feel  sure  that  you 
will  know  how  to  understand  and  pardon  me. 

Your  Friend  of  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER  III 


DEMOCRACY 


HARDLY  a  week  had  gone  by  since  Miss  Jones 
had  forwarded  the  foregoing  letter  when  a  new 
one  from  the  same  Chilean  in  Chicago  to  his 
wife  reached  her  table.  It  was  already  late,  and  she 
was  about  to  leave  the  office  as  she  opened  the  envelope ; 
but  such  was  her  impatience  to  read  the  letter,  that  she 
took  it  home  with  her,  and  in  her  quiet,  warm  library, 
this  was  what  she  read : 

Chicago,  111., ,  1918. 

My  dearest: 


This  country  boasts  of  being  the  first  democracy  of 
the  world.  The  classic  definition  of  democracy  here  is 
that  given  by  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg,  "A  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people."  It  is 
largely  a  theoretic  formula,  the  slogan  of  Roosevelt,  the 
touchstone  of  all  patriotic  speeches,  but  it  has  really  no 
actual  existence.  The  truth  is  that  those  who  govern 
here  are  a  group  elected  by  the  moneyed  classes  and 
not  by  the  people.  It  is  a  mere  pantomime  of  democ- 
racy. In  no  other  part  of  the  world  is  class  distinction 
so  marked  as  it  is  here.  The  millionaires  are  in  a  class 
by  themselves.     There  is  no  aristocracy  of  blood  as  in 

30 


DEMOCRACY  31 

Europe,  the  aristocracy  that  pulses  through  one's  veins, 
an  inheritance  through  centuries  of  nobility,  of  valor 
and  of  virtue  from  father  to  son  through  long  genera- 
tions. Here  they  appreciate  a  long  pedigree  for  horses, 
dogs,  chickens  and  even  swine,  but  not  for  men.  A  large 
fortune  gained  in  the  tallow  industry  suffices  to  make  a 
genealogical  oak  spring  up  over  night.  Europe  has  her 
Counts,  her  Dukes,  her  Marquesses  and  her  Princes; 
New  York  has  her  upper  Four  Hundred,  her  select 
families.  The  upper  circle  of  Yankee  plutocracy  outdoes 
in  many  ways  the  extravagances  of  courtiers  in  the  time 
of  Sardanapalus,  who  ground  up  pearls  and  diamonds 
in  their  food. 

Rockefeller  has  a  fortune  of  twelve  hundred  million 
dollars,  and  a  yearly  income  of  sixty  millions.  Ogden 
Armour,  here  in  Chicago,  has  a  fortune  of  a  hundred  and 
twenty-five  millions,  from  which  he  derives  a  yearly 
income  of  six  millions  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars.  Frick  earns  more  than  eleven  millions  a  year. 
Thirty  millionaires  of  this  country  could  have  loaned  to 
the  government  of  their  own  private  fortunes  all  the 
money  collected  in  the  Second  Liberty  Loan,  the  sum 
of  three  billion  dollars. 

Yet  the  daughters  of  these  democratic  multi-million- 
aires go  to  the  old  world  to  win  for  themselves  a  share 
in  the  effete  titles  of  European  Counts,  Marquesses, 
Dukes  and  Princes. 

It  is  true  that  to-day,  because  of  the  war  and  of  the 
great  number  of  men  that  are  being  sent  to  Europe,  it 
may  be  said  that  there  is  abundance  of  work  for  every 
one,  but  none  can  deny  that  in  normal  times  there  is 
here  an  army  of  unemployed  who  are  unable  to  get  work 
of  any  kind,  and  are  reduced  to  frightful  poverty. 


32        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

I  will  cite  you  another  one  of  the  witticisms  published 
in  their  newspapers  which  is,  as  usual,  only  an  exaggera- 
tion of  the  truth: 

A  man  in  Chicago  sees  a  person  drowning  in  the 
lake.  His  first  impulse  is  to  rush  to  save  him,  but  then 
he  discovers  that  the  man  struggling  desperately  for 
his  life  is  a  friend  who  occupies  a  position  which  he 
himself  could  fill.  He  thereupon  leaves  him  to  drown 
and  hurries  to  the  office  where  his  friend  had  been 
working,  before  any  one  else  should  have  time  to  apply 
for  the  position.  ' '  I  have  come, ' '  he  said  to  the  manager, 
"to  offer  myself  for  the  job  held  by  my  friend  John 
Doe,  who  is  drowning  in  the  lake."  "You  are  five 
minutes  late,"  replied  the  manager,  "the  man  who 
pushed  him  in  was  here  first." 

The  foregoing  is  a  mere  joke  and  a  clever  one.  Psy- 
chologically considered  the  humor  consists  in  exaggerat- 
ing— until  it  becomes  unbelievable — an  actual  truth; 
the  difficulty  of  getting  a  living  in  America.  To  cap 
this  I  am  going  to  tell  you  of  an  actual  occurrence  which 
sounds  like  fiction  but  which  is  a  horrible  reality — a 
counterpart  of  the  preceding  jest.  Not  long  ago  three 
eminent  men  in  Chicago  died  suddenly  after  a  dinner 
they  had  partaken  together  in  a  hotel.  Upon  examina- 
tion of  the  case  it  was  discovered  that  they  had  been 
poisoned  by  some  powder  placed  in  their  food.  Further 
investigation  proved  that  many  waiters  were  accustomed 
to  put  this  powder  in  the  dishes  ordered  by  patrons 
who  did  not  tip  them.  Such  cases  of  poisoning  are 
frequent. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  lower  classes,  in 
spite  of  their  much  advertised  democracy,  live  here 
in  more  frightful  misery  than  in  any  other  country  on 


DEMOCRACY  33 

the  globe.  It  is  enough  to  read  books  like  "The  Jun- 
gle" and  "King  Coal"  of  Upton  Sinclair  in  order  to  get 
an  idea  of  what  poverty  is  like  in  the  United  States. 
Jack  London,  in  his  book,  "The  Iron  Heel,"  gives  some  V 
idea  of  what  life  in  this  country  will  be  once  capital 
and  labor  will  have  met  in  battle  array. 

And  meanwhile,  what  means  this  democracy  of  po- 
litical oratory,  of  the  demagogue,  what  means  this  adula- 
tion of  the  workers,  this  deception  of  the  poor?  It  is 
a  way  of  nattering  them  so  that  the  blusterers  may  climb 
to  political  power.  But  the  result  will  be  far  more 
tragic  than  one  can  foresee.  The  laborer  has  become 
arrogant,  wants  everything  and  thinks  himself  entitled 
to  demand  everything.  He  believes  himself  equal  to 
the  upper  classes.  You  cannot  imagine  the  tyranny  of 
the  American  labor  unions.  They  declare  a  strike  to 
inforce  the  acceptance  of  some  audacious  demand  which 
they  have  put  forward,  and  then  prevent  the  men  from 
entering  the  factories  until  it  is  granted.  These  work- 
men forbid  their  employers  to  engage  men  who  do  not 
belong  to  the  unions.  The  capitalist,  the  man  who  pro- 
vides the  work,  is  a  slave  of  the  working  man.  Once 
there  was  a  strike  in  the  McCormick  workshops  in  Chi- 
cago, employing  thousands  of  workmen.  The  factory 
engaged  through  the  Pinkerton  agency  the  services  of 
new  men,  so-called  strike-breakers,  who  form  a  special 
profession  in  this  country ;  but  these  professionals  could 
do  nothing,  and  had,  indeed,  a  narrow  escape  from  a 
horrible  death,  because  the  strikers  set  fire  to  the  vessel 
which  was  bringing  them  across  Lake  Michigan. 

Not  long  ago  there  was  another  strike  in  Evanston, 
near  Chicago.  In  order  to  recommence  work  the  fac- 
tory had  to  engage  the  services  of  fifty  strike-breakers 


34       THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

who  were  compelled  to  live  at  the  factory  under  the 
protection  of  seventy  policemen. 

You  can  understand  now  what  the  tyranny  of  work- 
men intoxicated  with  democratic  ideas  means.  A  fruit 
of  this  social  philosophy  are  the  "Industrial  Workers 
of  the  World/ '  workmen  who  do  not  speak  with  their 
tongues  but  with  bombs  of  dynamite  with  which  they 
daily  succeed  in  terrorizing  this  country.  There  are  at 
present  under  indictment  a  hundred  and  twelve  of  these 
Industrial  Workers,  who  are  accused  en  masse  of  fo- 
menting dynamite  outrages  and  treason. 

All  this  is  the  result  of  the  famous  Yankee  democracy, 
that  will  probably  bring  in  its  wake  a  catastrophe  like 
that  of  the  Bolsheviki  in  Russia.  There  it  has  been 
shown  quite  convincingly  what  a  government,  "of  the 
people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people/ '  really  is, 
namely,  chaos  and  the  appointment  of  ignorant  laborers 
as  Secretaries  of  Finance.  This  may  come  to  pass  any 
day  in  this  country  that  maintains  its  social  organization 
as  by  a  miracle  in  a  tottering  balance. 

Not  because  the  United  States  can  boast  so  far  of  a 
material  triumph  can  we  admit  that  they  have  succeeded 
as  a  democracy.  The  success  of  a  country  is  proven  by 
the  record  of  centuries.  To-day  one  chapter  suffices  to 
tell  of  the  grandeur  and  fall  of  Rome.  Men  count  their 
lives  by  years,  but  nations  count  theirs  by  generations. 
The  United  States  of  America  has  only  begun  to  live, 
and  as  yet  cannot  speak  of  any  really  definite  triumph. 
This  democracy  is  only  an  experiment,  and  runs  the 
risk  of  those  who  experiment  in  laboratories  with  un- 
known explosives. 

I  think  that  this  government  of  an  anonymous,  irre- 
sponsible multitude  is  an  absurdity.    They  do  not  even 


DEMOCRACY  35 

know  what  is  good  for  them.  This  nation  represents 
an  experiment  in  democracy,  the  result  of  which  is  going 
to  be  tragic.  Up  to  the  present  it  has  succeeded  because 
it  has  never  been  a  democracy  in  reality,  but  only  a 
democracy  in  theory. 

How  different  things  are  in  Germany,*  where,  never- 
theless, the  workman  lives  better  than  in  any  other 
country,  though  he  is  not  flattered  nor  permitted  any 
undue  interference  in  the  election  of  his  governors. 
There  government  is  by  the  upper  classes,  which  are 
the  most  capable  in  any  country ;  there  the  social  hier- 
archy is  respected,  and  they  have  the  courage  to  recog- 
nize the  value  of  caste,  inherently  superior  by  virtue  of 
its  antecedents.  Here,  as  in  our  own  country,  they  lack 
the  courage  necessary  to  proclaim  openly  the  superior 
inherited  ability  of  the  higher  classes,  though  we  cannot 
deny  that  they  possess  all  the  sterling  virtues  of  the 
human  race. 

And  it  is  from  here,  from  the  United  States,  that  the 
new  current  of  democratic  ideas  has  gone  to  Chile;  ideas 
that  have  infected  our  people,  constituting  one  of  the 
most  serious  dangers  that  threaten  us  for  the  future. 
We  owe  our  progress  and  our  order  to  the  traditional 
regime  of  our  country,  by  means  of  which  the  intelligent 
classes  hold  permanent  control  of  the  government  as  in 
Germany. 

It  is  not,  as  you  well  know,  that  I  am  a  German  sym- 
pathizer in  the  present  war.  The  Germans  are  entirely 
too  ambitious  and  aim  at  world  control.  It  is  proper 
that  all  the  world  should  be  on  guard  to  show  that  it 
has  no  intention  of  being  so  dominated ;  but  we  have  to 

*  This  letter  is  supposed  to  have  been  written  when  Germany  was 
at  the  high  water  mark  of  its  military  achievements. 


36        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

admit  that  Germany  is  the  most  efficient  nation  of  the 
globe,  exactly  because  there  the  most  efficient  classes 
rule  without  hindrance. 

The  basic  idea  of  democracy  is  against  the  law  of 
nature.  Society  is  a  living  organism,  the  individuals 
composing  which  are  equivalent  to  the  cells  of  an  indi- 
vidual organism  like  that  of  man. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  the  cells  of  the  feet  di- 
recting the  whole  structure  of  the  human  body;  it  is 
the  cells  of  the  brain  which  tell  the  feet  where  they  are 
to  go.  In  a  social  organism  the  upper  classes  constitute 
the  brain  of  the  nation,  and  this  it  is  that  should  de- 
termine the  destiny  of  the  people  and  dictate  the  regu- 
lations to  which  they  must  submit.  In  nature  liquids 
occupy  the  place  which  corresponds  to  their  density; 
mercury  cannot  be  made  to  float  on  water.  Men  also 
occupy  in  society  the  place  in  which  they  belong  ac- 
cording to  their  merit,  and  this  merit  is  hereditary. 

In  Germany,  the  worth  of  an  electoral  vote  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  individual  merit  of  the  elector  in 
question.  The  vote  of  a  man  of  high  rank  has,  natu- 
rally, greater  weight.  This  is  logical  and  just ;  it  is  an 
advantage  to  the  nation.  In  our  country,  although  we 
had  the  weakness  to  adopt  in  theory  the  principles  of 
the  French  Revolution,  we  have  had  the  common  sense 
not  to  accept  such  a  dangerous  policy  in  reality,  and  our 
electoral  votes  count  in  accordance  with  the  wealth 
of  each  elector.  The  vote  of  one  who  can  purchase  the 
greatest  number  of  votes  is  worth  the  most.  This  has 
saved  us.  If  our  people  had  conducted  their  own  elec- 
tions with  this  so-called  democratic  freedom  we  should 
have  failed  utterly  as  a  nation.  There  they  declaim 
against  bribery  as  a  salute  to  the  flag  of  democratic  prin- 


DEMOCRACY  37 

ciples;  but  no  politician  of  any  party,  except  labor, 
wishes  sincerely  to  see  any  change  in  the  reality  of  our 
electoral  system. 

Here  in  the  United  States  there  is  an  increasingly 
ardent  desire  to  place  the  government  in  the  hands  of 
the  people.  The  judges  are  elected  by  popular  vote, 
in  some  States  they  may  even  be  impeached  by  a  peti- 
tion drawn  up  by  the  same  electors,  a  prerogative  which 
is  entitled  the  "recall."  A  proof,  however,  that  faith 
in  this  system  of  popular  election  is  not  absolute  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
are  not  chosen  by  the  popular  vote.  On  the  contrary, 
they  receive  their  appointment  directly  from  the  gov- 
ernment, as  in  our  country. 

Another  most  extraordinary  democratic  right  of  the 
common  people  in  many  States  of  the  Union  are  the  pro- 
ceedings called  "initiative  and  referendum."  This  ac- 
tually permits  them  to  make  laws  directly.  It  means  that 
a  certain  number  of  voters  may  present  for  the  popular 
vote  any  private  petition  that  has  in  no  way  been  in- 
stigated by  the  authorities  elected  by  the  people.  A 
municipal  candidate,  or  a  candidate  for  the  legislature, 
may  have  been  elected  on  a  definite  political  platform, 
with  a  definite  program  to  carry  out.  If  in  any  way 
he  breaks  faith  with  the  terms  of  this  program,  or  de- 
parts from  his  political  platform,  he  can  be  impeached 
by  the  same  will  that  put  him  in  office:  the  popular 
vote.  It  may  happen  sometimes  that  he  has  conducted 
himself  according  to  the  terms  of  his  platform  but  that 
those  who  had  elected  him  had  seen  fit  to  change  their 
minds  about  some  certain  topic.  These  voters,  in  a 
group  whose  number  is  determined  by  law,  may  petition 
that  this  or  that  legal  project  be  submitted  to  ballot. 


38        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Not  long  ago  in  Chicago  they  secured  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  signatures  to  a  petition  that  it  be 
decided  by  a  popular  vote  whether  Chicago  should  or 
should  not  be  a  prohibition  city.  In  order  to  put  this 
question  to  popular  vote  there  were  needed  the  signa- 
tures of  only  one  hundred  and  six  thousand  five  hundred 
voters.  If  this  project  had  become  law,  as  has  happened 
in  so  many  other  States,  it  would  have  been  an  example 
of  legislation  initiated  directly  by  the  people.  A  law 
dictated  by  the  State  Congress  may,  by  means  of  the 
referendum,  be  submitted  to  the  popular  vote,  that  is 
to  say,  the  people  may  veto  the  decisions  of  the  legis- 
lators. I  do  not  think  that  this  could  ever  come  to  pass 
in  our  country,  and  alas  for  us  if  it  should ! 

It  would  take  too  long  to  explain  this  to  you  in  de- 
tail, but  the  sum  and  substance  of  it  is  this :  A  maximum 
of  power  is  given  to  the  people,  not  only  to  elect  its 
representatives  and  to  recall  them  before  they  finish 
their  term,  but  also  to  instigate  direct  legislation,  some- 
times in  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  very  persons  whom 
the  popular  vote  has  placed  in  office.  Moreover,  the 
franchise,  or  right  to  vote,  is  as  widely  extended  as  pos- 
sible, and  includes  the  women  in  a  great  many  States, 
a  condition  that  will  soon  exist  in  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try. Some  day,  perhaps,  the  animals  and  plants  will 
vote  as  well !  Soldiers  can  vote,  and  just  now  they  are 
taking  steps  to  enable  those  who  are  actually  in  the 
trenches  in  Europe  to  exercise  this  right  of  American 
citizenship.  It  will  not  surprise  me  if  there  should  come 
a  day  when  American  warships  will  send  home  the  votes 
of  their  crews  by  wireless  from  all  the  seas. 

What  most  particularly  impresses  me  in  the  barefaced 
deception  of  this  pretended  democratic  system  of  gov- 


DEMOCRACY  39 

eminent  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people 
is  the  fact  that  the  "people,"  the  multitude,  neither 
thinks  nor  wishes  nor  cares  for  anything  in  which  it 
is  not  directly  interested.  It  allows  itself  to  be  swayed 
unconsciously  in  affairs  of  common  or  collective  interest. 
A  few  leaders  take1  charge  of  a  project  and  organize  the 
respective  propaganda,  "When  I  tell  you  that  there 
have  been  secured  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  signa- 
tures to  the  petition  which  would  make  of  Chicago  a 
prohibition  city,  do  not  imagine  for  a  moment  that  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  persons  have  come  forward 
voluntarily  to  sign  this  petition.  Nothing  of  the  sort. 
It  has  been  taken  from  house  to  house,  from  office  to 
office  by  solicitors  pleading  for  signatures  and  seeking  to 
convince  the  voters  just  as  merchandise  is  offered  for 
sale  by  traveling  salesmen.  The  petition  is  not  a  re- 
flection of  the  collective  will  of  the  people,  but  of  the 
will  of  a  small  group  that  knows  how  to  drag  in  its 
train  an  unthinking  mob.  It  is  just  this  that  saves  for 
the  present  the  democratic  regime  of  the  country. 

It  is  already  apparent  here  in  Chicago  that  the  Social- 
ists are  gaining  ground,  and,  in  order  to  beat  them  at 
the  last  election  of  Judges  for  Cook  County,  the  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats,  the  two  traditional  parties  of 
the  country,  had  to  join  forces  against  them.  One  need 
not  be  unusually  penetrating  to  see  that  the  Democrats 
.  and  Republicans  in  the  future  will  unite  into  one  party 
representing  the  interests  of  capital,  in  order  to  combat 
the  ever  growing  Socialist  party  representing  the  endless 
exactions  of  the  working  class.  And  after  them  will 
come  the  Bolsheviki,  the  nihilists,  the  anarchists,  the 
iconoclasts  of  civilization.  There  will  be  no  other  means 
of  saving  the  situation  than  that  of  dictating  a  new  law 


40        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

to  curtail  the  voting  power  of  the  lower  elements  of 
society,  for  otherwise  there  must  come  the  downfall  of 
the  present  organization.  And  this  curtailment  will  be 
the  denial  of  the  democratic  theory,  of  a  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  Even  now 
there  are  editorials  in  the  most  prominent  newspapers 
that  advocate  the  idea  of  placing  more  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  suffrage  of  the  naturalized  foreigner;  and  in 
other  articles  of  the  public  press  it  is  even  claimed  that 
the  Socialists  should  be  denied  the  right  to  vote. 

Radical  measures  like  this  will  have  to  be  taken,  in 
this  country  and  in  all  'the  world,  because  if  it  is  really 
true  that  this  is  now  only  nominally  "a  government  of 
the  people  and  by  the  people,"  at  the  rate  at  which 
things  are  going,  with  the  development  of  the  labor 
unions,  it  might  become  a  real  government  of  the  com- 
mon people,  which  will  be  as  exacting  as  the  Soviets  of 
the  Russian  Bolsheviki. 

In  all  that  I  have  told  you,  you  can  see  to  what  ex- 
tremes is  carried  this  democracy  that  we  foolishly  ac- 
cept in  theory  and  wisely  repudiate  in  practice.  In 
our  country  no  one  speaks  of  this  openly  in  the  news- 
papers nor  in  the  magazines  nor  in  books;  no  one  has 
dared  frankly  to  come  to  the  defense  of  the  aristocracy, 
and  we  must  needs  feign  reverence  for  this  democratic 
chorus  in  which  the  world  now  lifts  its  voice.  This  is 
one  of  the  most  outrageous  conventional  falsehoods  of 
which  our  new  civilization  is  guilty.  Germany  is  the 
only  country  that  has  preferred  not  to  lie,  but  has  had 
the  courage  to  defend  the  doctrine  of  an  aristocracy, 
to  fight  and  shed  blood  in  its  cause;  and,  consequently, 
that  country  is  the  most  efficient  in  all  the  world,  in 
science,  arts,  industry  and  strength,  so  much  so  that 


DEMOCRACY  41 

Germany,  in  the  intoxication  of  its  triumph,  has  wished 
to  rule  the  world.  There  is  only  one  other  example  of 
this  type  on  the  whole  planet :  Japan.  These  are  strong 
countries  and  their  strength  is  that  of  their  ablest  men. 
The  United  States  also  has  its  super  men,  but  they  are 
surrendering  their  power,  abandoning  their  prerogatives 
and  avoiding  their  responsibility.  It  is  a  renunciation. 
That  is  what  democracy  signifies,  the  renunciation  of 
the  fit  and  the  advent  of  the  unfit. 

But  I  have  already  talked  too  much,  my  dear  one, 
of  the  affairs  of  this  country,  and  very  little  of  our 
private  affairs.     I  ought  »to 


Your  husband  who   adores  you, 


No  sooner  had  Miss  Jones  finished  reading  this  than 
she  started  to  write  the  answer.  There  was  no  time  to 
finish  that  night,  and  on  the  following  day  she  had  to 
go  to  the  Public  Library  to  look  up  some  items  which 
she  could  not  find  in  her  own  library.  Her  supplemen- 
tary notes  finally  took  shape  in  these  words: 

Madam: 

Since  I  took  the  liberty  to  make  a  few  observations 
on  your  husband's  former  letter,  it  may  not  seem  strange 
that  I  do  the  same  with  this.  The  letter  that  goes  to  you 
by  this  mail  arouses  in  me  as  many,  if  not  more,  objec- 
tions than  the  last. 

Yes,  madam,  your  husband  is  right,  we  are  a  national 


42        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

experiment  in  democracy,  but  it  is  an  experiment  in 
which  the  country  has  an  immense  faith,  a  faith  that  is 
almost  religious.  We  have  faith  in  a  government  of 
the  people,  for  the  people  and  by  the  people.  "We  believe 
that  every  man  and  every  woman  should  have  freedom 
to  govern  him  or  herself  personally  as  best  it  suits  them 
within  the  limitations  that  the  rights  of  others  impose ; 
but  we  do  not  believe  that  those  in  office  have  the  right 
to  govern  us  as  they  please,  in  contradiction  to  the  will 
of  the  governed. 

When  our  nation  had  just  awakened  to  independent 
life  it  was  thought  to  make  of  it  a  monarchy,  and  to 
Washington  was  offered  a  royal  crown,  but  the  spirit  of 
liberty  which  had  impelled  the  first  colonists  to  America 
brought  about  the  triumph  of  the  Kepublic.  The  history 
of  our  political  development,  first  with  its  "  congres- 
sional caucus"  (oligarchy,  the  election  of  the  candidates 
for  the  presidency  of  the  republic  in  private  conferences 
between  congressmen)  afterwards  with  political  conven- 
tions, and  finally  with  the  popular  liberty  more  freely 
expressed  to-day,  show  that  we  are  rapidly  making  of 
our  country  a  democracy  in  action,  not  in  theory  alone, 
as  your  husband  says. 

We  do  not  believe,  madam,  in  the  divine  right  of 
authority.  We  believe  that  the  authority  to  govern  a 
people  comes  from  the  will  of  that  same  people.  Neither 
do  we  believe  in  the  prerogatives  of  a  governing  class, 
in  an  aristocratic  regime.  As  your  husband  says,  we 
appreciate  the  value  of  a  pedigree  in  horses,  cows, 
chickens  and  hogs,  but  not  in  men.  Madam,  if  you  have 
a  prize  chicken  farm  or  a  horse-breeding  establishment, 
you  subject  all  your  best  stock,  which  you  desire  to  im- 
prove  and   perpetuate,   to   very   special   conditions   of 


DEMOCRACY  43 

feeding  and  propagation,  and  you  are  constantly  seeking 
to  improve  the  race  which  is  your  specialty.  AVith  the 
human  race  nothing  of  the  kind  is  possible.  The  son  of 
a  magnate,  lacking  the  urgent  need  to  work  that  made 
his  progenitors  rich  and  powerful,  and  surrounded  by 
comforts  and  luxuries,  is  exposed  to  the  danger  that 
instead  of  cultivating  and  improving  the  virtues  that 
should  be  his  by  right  of  inheritance,  he  is  very  apt  to 
acquire  vices  unknown  to  his  ancestors.  If  this  rich 
man's  son  should  conserve  and  perfect  the  sterling  quali- 
ties of  his  forebears,  he  will  enjoy,  in  a  democratic  so- 
ciety, all  the  prerogatives  of  his  parents  in  open  com- 
petition with  others  as  able  as  he,  whether  they  are  heirs 
of  superior  men,  or  sons  of  men  of  humble  origin  who  in 
the  rude  school  of  life  have  fashioned  their  characters 
and  acquired  qualities  essential  to  social  and  economic 
success. 

Napoleon  II  has  no  claim  to  the  admiration  of  the 
world  although  he  happened  to  be  the  son  of  Napoleon 
I,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  is  revered  by  humanity  al- 
though his  father  was  a  carpenter  who  could  not  read 
or  write  when  he  married.  We  believe  every  man  to 
be  the  architect  of  his  own  character,  the  sculptor  of 
his  own  monument,  and  we  strive  to  keep  the  social 
structure  such  that  the  survival  of  the  fit  shall  be  real- 
ized as  easily  as  the  downfall  of  the  unfit.  We  believe 
thaf  the  greatest  riches  a  country  possesses  are  its  own 
citizens,  and  we  likewise  believe  in  giving  to  each  and 
every  one  of  these  the  best  possible  chance  to  develop 
their  personality.  We  have  faith  in  what  a  broad  educa- 
tion will  do,  and  we  wish  to  place  it  within  the  reach 
of  every  man  in  order  to  permit  him  to  develop  his 
powers  to  their  utmost.     It  is  also  part  of  our  social 


44        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

creed  that  talents  should  find  easy  and  automatic  means 
to  place  themselves  in  the  setting  which  they  deserve,  in 
order  that  they  may  render  the  greatest  possible  service 
to  the  community.  What  would  it  have  availed  our 
country  if  Edison  had  continued  selling  newspapers  to 
railroad  passengers?  It  is  much  better  that  he  should 
have  the  management  of  his  present  large  fortune,  and 
of  his  laboratory  at  Menlo  Park,  where  he  can  produce 
more,  not  only  for  himself,  but  for  the  common  good. 

"We  do  not  yet  know  enough  about  biology  to  deter- 
mine whether  individual  organisms  are  democratic  or 
aristocratic,  but  we  do  know  that  human  society  is  more 
complex  than  the  human  individual,  because  its  constit- 
uent cells  are  more  complex,  and  it  is  therefore  not 
logical  for  your  husband  to  say  that  the  basic  idea  of 
democracy  is  against  the  law  of  nature. 

Democracy  is  a  question  of  social  justice,  but  it  is 
also  a  question  of  social  convenience,  of  social  advantage. 
A  democratic  organization  is  the  most  adequate  human 
organization  for  the  most  intense  utilization  of  all  the 
resources  of  mankind,  that  is  to  say  of  the  material,  the 
intellectual  and  the  moral  opportunities  that  are  his 
dower. 

A  democratic  organization  means,  in  the  first  place, 
an  equality  of  opportunity  for  all.  You  have  seen,  no 
doubt,  in  your  own  country,  the  condor  spreading  out 
its  majestic  wings  high  over  the  peaks  of  the  Andes, 
free  and  powerful,  covering  great  distances  in  its  rapid 
flight;  and  you  may  have  seen,  in  the  Zoological  gar- 
dens, the  same  condor,  apparently  free,  without  a  fetter 
to  impede  his  soaring  to  the  heights.  Why  does  not  the 
latter  also  fly?  Why  is  he  dejected  and  sad?  His  wings 
are  there,  entire ;  the  sky  is  there,  free  and  open,  but  the 


DEMOCBACY  45 

gratings  that  limit  his  enclosure  do  not  permit  him  to 
make  the  running  start  necessary  for  his  flight.  Man 
laughs  at  his  great  wings.  The  condor  seems  to  be 
free  but  he  is  not.  Thus,  the  man  who  has  not  had  his 
chance  at  a  public  school— that  wide  arena  where  the 
first  unfettered  trials  are  made  to  prepare  for  the  real 
race  of  life— seems  to  be  free,  all  his  limbs  are  whole 
and  sound;  he  has  the  wide  world  before  him  for  his 
flight,  but  .  .  .  his  freedom  is  derisory,  he  is  a  prisoner 
like  the  condor. 

This  equality  of  opportunity  exists  in  my  country 
on  an  ever  increasing  scale.     It  exists  on  a  larger  scale 
than  in  any  other  country  of  the  world.     The  term 
"self-made  man"  has  passed  from  the  English  to  all 
modern  languages.    The  "self-made  man"  is  a  product 
as  American  as  the  pineapple  is  Brazilian.    In  the  presi- 
dency of  the  Eepublic,  among  the  secretaries  of  state, 
in  Congress,  in  the  judicial  career,  in  industry,  in  com- 
merce, in  the  army,  in  the  navy,  in  all  human  activities, 
you  may  see  children  of  unknown  fathers,  messengers, 
even  newsboys  as  they  arrive  at  maturity  become  lead- 
ers in  some  branch  of  activity.    These  same  boys  would 
not  have  been  able  to  rise  in  the  same  way  in  any  anti- 
democratic country,  because  "self-made  man"  does  not 
mean  made  by  himself  alone,  without  the  help  of  so- 
ciety but  formed  by  himself  with  the  help  of  society,  and 
without  the  help  of  the  special  privileges  that  in  other 
countries   involve   the   inheritance   of   a  more   or   less 
considerable    fortune.      Society   helps   with    its    public 
schools,  its  night-schools,  its  Sunday  schools,  its  libraries, 
its  free  lecture  courses,  its  museums,  its  art  galleries, 
its  churches,  its  settlements;  that  is  to  say,  society  has 
in   a  democratic  regime,  hundreds  and  thousands  of 


46        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

tentacles  that  go  reaching  out  into  the  remotest  confines 
of  the  nation  striving  to  touch  as  by  a  magic  wand 
every  brain  and  every  heart.  For  each  there  is  a  ladder 
by  which  he  may  reach  the  heights  appropriate  to  his 
capacity  now  developed  to  its  greatest  extent  by  these 
social  agents  with  which,  whether  or  not  he  wills  it,  he 
is,  nevertheless,  placed  in  contact  every  day  of  his  life. 
This  secures  to  society  a  constant  renewal  of  its  di- 
recting elements.  It  does  not  mean  the  renunciation  of 
the  fit  and  the  advent  of  the  unfit,  as  your  husband 
believes,  but  the  elimination  of  the  unfit  and  the  advent 
of  the  fit.  In  your  country,  the  presidency  of  the  Ke- 
public  has  been  generally  in  the  hands  of  a  few  privi- 
leged families,  that  is  to  say,  within  a  republican  consti- 
tution there  has  been  perpetuated  a  European  aristo- 
cratic regime.  This  is  not  the  case  with  us.  We  have 
never  had  both  father  and  son  elected  to  the  presidency. 
Neither  the  fame  nor  the  ability  of  the  father  secures 
the  future  welfare  of  the  son;  in  each  generation  all 
enter  the  race  on  equal  conditions.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
say  that  this  is  the  invariable  rule  in  our  country  now, 
but  it  is  the  tendency  of  our  evolution,  and  has  been  since 
the  beginning  of  our  history. 

Not  long  since,  madam,  the  University  of  Wisconsin 
celebrated  its  fiftieth  anniversary.  There  were  present 
four  of  the  former  Presidents  of  the  University.  One 
of  them,  ex-President  Northrop,  pronounced  these  words 
which  illustrate  my  thought  very  clearly :  ' '  The  utility 
of  the  University  is  not  limited  to  the  great  men  it 
forms.  The  utility  of  the  public  school  is  not  measured 
by  the  number  of  exceptionally  able  men  that  have 
studied  in  it,  but  in  the  general  betterment  of  the  multi- 
tude.   If  we  can  make  the  sum  total  of  our  citizens  fiftv 


DEMOCRACY  47 

per  cent  more  capable,  it  is  much  better  than  to  make 
some  of  them  a  hundred  per  cent  more  capable,  while 
the  multitude  has  not  been  appreciably  improved.  The 
ideal  of  democracy  is  to  make  the  multitude  intelligent, 
not  to  form  a  few  intelligent  leaders  and  leave  the  com- 
mon people  in  obscurity.  "We  need  intelligent  leaders, 
but  we  also  need  an  intelligent  people,  able  to  follow 
those  leaders. ' ' 

The  above  does  not  imply  the  suppression  of  social 
divisions,  as  these  are  not  in  themselves  a  negation  of 
democracy.  We  consider  the  public  school  a  democratic 
ideal  because  there  all  have  a  common  basis  upon  which 
to  begin — one  and  the  same  platform  from  which  to 
make  the  start  of  life's  flight.  This  does  not  mean, 
however,  that  a  democratic  regime  obliges  the  person 
of  culture  to  live  with  illiterates,  or  the  millionaire  with 
the  pauper,  though  their  doing  so  is  not  prohibited  or 
even  censured ;  it  signifies  merely  that  the  illiterate  has 
every  facility  to  make  himself  a  man  of  culture  and  the 
beggar,  a  like  chance  to  become  a  millionaire.  There 
are  select  circles,  and  separate  groups,  but  the  doors 
that  lead  to  them  stand  wide  open  to  him  who  wishes 
to  pay  his  entrance  fee  in  effort,  talent,  perseverance  and 
honesty.  Democracy  is  not  equality  among  men,  but 
equal  opportunities  for  all  men.  Democracy  does  not 
mean  the  leveling  of  mankind  to  an  average  standard, 
but  the  bringing  of  opportunities  to  a  level  that  all  can 
reach. 

Your  husband  may  say  when  commenting  on  the 
power  of  our  millionaires  that  this  equality  of  chance 
is  only  a  hollow  phrase  beside  the  privileges  of  an  ac- 
quired fortune.     Let  us  see. 

He  speaks  of  the  enormous  fortunes  of  this  country. 


48        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

There  are  such,  it  is  true.  John  D.  Rockefeller  has  a 
fortune  of  twelve  hundred  million  dollars,  and  many 
others  follow  closely  after.  Doubtless,  unjust  social 
conditions  have  made  these  extraordinary  accumulations 
possible.  But,  madam,  have  you  any  idea  of  the  amount 
to  which  this  private  fortune  is  assessed  for  public 
revenue?  Rockefeller's  annual  income  amounts  to  sixty 
million  dollars  and  his  taxes  to  forty  millions.  The 
present  tax — a  war  tax,  it  is  true,  but  likely  to  remain 
at  little  less  than  his  ratio— provides  that  all  incomes 
exceeding  two  million  dollars  shall  pay  sixty-three  per 
cent  to  the  state.  It  is  one  of  the  great  checks  to  the 
undue  privileges  of  capital.  The  additional  taxes  on 
income  now  in  force  are  progressive. 

These  undue  prerogatives  of  capital  are  moreover 
subjected  to  limitation  by  our  democracy  in  many  dif- 
ferent ways,  such  as  by  the  laws  that  regulate  trusts, 
income  and  inheritance  taxes,  and  by  other  methods 
which  each  new  social  period  proceeds  to  formulate. 
William  Kent,  a  millionaire  and  a  member  of  the  Tax 
Committee,  has  recently  expressed  his  opinion  with  re- 
spect to  this  problem  in  the  following  words:  ''There 
should  not  exist  such  employments  as  footmen,  butlers  or 
chauffeurs.  Men  of  fortune  retain  a  great  number  of 
persons  employed  in  these  positions  of  luxury.  I 
would  like  to  see,"  added  this  millionaire,  "the  income 
tax  so  high  that  this  class  of  employees  could  not  be 
retained  by  wealthy  families.' ' 

"We  do  not  fear  at  all  what  your  husband  sees  fit  to 
call  the  undue  pretensions  of  the  working  man.  We  firmly 
believe  that  the  working  man  will  continue  to  secure 
higher  wages  and  shorter  hours  of  work,  partly  as  a 
measure  of  social  justice  and  partly  as  a  dictate  of  social 


DEMOCRACY  49 

selfishness,  because  society  needs  that  all  its  members 
should  have  an  equal  opportunity  to  develop  personality 
to  its  highest,  a  thing  that  is  impossible  under  actual 
conditions  of  industrial  servitude.  We  must  face  the 
inevitable,  madam,  that  the  crowbar,  the  plane,  the  brace 
and  bit,  the  furnace  and  the  lathe  are  all  taking  on  the 
majestic  proportions  of  heraldic  escutcheons,  of  the 
royal  crowns.  Only  yesterday  we  read  how  our  dele- 
gation of  working  men  was  received  in  the  palace  of  the 
King  and  Queen  of  England  and  feasted  by  the  highest 
dignitaries  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

No,  we  are  not  afraid,  we  are  not  troubled  as  we  note 
this  evolution.  On  the  contrary,  we  have  enthusiastic- 
ally gone  out  to  meet  it  that  we  may  help  it.  Even  our 
wealthy  magnates  understand  the  transformation  and 
comment  upon  it  without  becoming  alarmed.  Do  you 
know  what  one  of  the  best  known  millionaires  of  the 
U.  S.  A.  says  in  regard  to  this?  This  steel  king,  Mr. 
Charles  M.  Schwab,  is  president  of  the  Bethlehem  Steel 
Company,  which  exploits  the  iron  of  El  Tofo  in  your 
own  Chile,  the  company  which  has  built  on  that  far 
off  coast  the  port  of  Cruz  Grande,  and  which  is  trans- 
porting a  mountain  of  iron  from  your  country  to  mine. 
The  company  of  which  Mr.  Schwab  is  president  em- 
ploys a  hundred  thousand  workingmen  and  pays  in 
wages  twelve  million  dollars  monthly.  It  signifies  that 
economically  speaking,  the  word  of  such  a  man  has 
weight,  and  it  has  also  great  weight  politically  speaking, 
as  not  long  since  Mr.  Schwab  was  Chairman  of  the 
Board  controlling  the  construction  of  ships  for  our 
government.  This  man  uttered  these  words  when  not 
yet  an  employee  of  the  government  at  a  salary  of  one 
dollar  a  year:     "We  are  on  the  threshold  of  a  new 


50        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

era.  The  new  order  of  things  is  going  to  be  hard  for 
many  of  us  and  it  will  come  sooner  than  we  were  ex- 
pecting. It  means  a  social  rebirth  of  all  the  world. 
Some  call  it  socialism.  Others  call  it  Bolshevism.  What 
it  means  is  this :  The  man  that  works  with  his  hands, 
the  man  that  does  not  possess  riches  is  he  who  will  rule 
the  business  of  the  world,  not  only  in  Russia  and  Ger- 
many and  the  U.  S.  A.,  but  literally  throughout  the 
world.  This  great  change  will  be  a  social  adjustment. 
I  repeat  that  it  is  going  to  be  hard  for  those  who  possess 
a  large  part  of  the  capital,  but  in  the  end  it  will  prob- 
ably be  beneficial  for  all  of  us ;  and  so  we  ought  not  to 
oppose  this  movement  without  informing  ourselves  re- 
garding its  dominant  ideas.  I  have  no  wish  to  lose  the 
money  I  possess.  The  more  money  a  man  has  the  more 
he  wishes  to  have.  The  change  from  the  old  to  the  new 
order  of  things  will  be  steady  but  rapid.  The  aristoc- 
racy of  the  future  will  not  be  the  aristocracy  of  riches. 
It  will  be  the  aristocracy  of  those  who  have  done  some- 
thing for  their  country  and  for  the  world." 

You  see,  madam,  that  even  the  owners  of  great  for- 
tunes do  not  entertain  much  fear  of  the  social  evolu- 
tion that  inspires  your  husband  with  so  much  dread. 
As  for  the  extravagance  of  our  millionaires  to  which 
your  husband  alludes,  frankly,  I  think  it  is  very  much 
exaggerated.  I  believe  that,  in  comparison  with  mil- 
lionaires of  other  countries,  what  most  distinguishes 
the  American  is  their  cheerful  readiness  to  give  away 
their  millions  in  works  destined  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  people. 

The  same  Mr.  Schwab,  not  long  ago,  in  Chicago,  where 
he  was  speaking  as  Director  General  of  the  Shipping 
Board,  related  a  very  telling  story:     Going  with  Mr. 


DEMOCRACY  51 

Carnegie  to  inaugurate  a  library  and  an  auditorium, 
gifts  which  Mr.  Carnegie  and  he  were  making  to  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  he  went  to  his  room  to 
dress  for  the  ceremony,  and  found  his  valet  desperately 
hunting  under  the  bed  for  a  collar-button.  "I  am 
leaving  your  service,"  said  the  indignant  man  to  his 
employer.  "You  and  Mr.  Carnegie  come  here  to  give 
away  millions,  but  you  are  the  owner  of  only  one  collar- 
button,  which  I  have  dropped  on  the  floor  and  cannot 
find." 

While  Mr.  Schwab  was  making  his  speech,  his  wife 
was  in  the  hotel  knitting  woolen  clothing  to  send  to  the 
soldiers  in  the  trenches.  This  is  where  I  must  tell  you 
that  there  is  much  exaggeration  in  the  general  belief 
that  the  daughters  of  our  millionaires  lose  their  heads 
over  European  princes.  Naturally,  some  cases  of  this 
kind  occur  among  the  thousands  of  millionaires'  fami- 
lies, and  they  are  given  so  much  publicity  that  the  in- 
experienced observer  very  frequently  makes  a  mistaken 
generalization. 

Eiches  have  their  privileges;  madam.  How  could  it 
be  otherwise?  But  the  tendency  In  our  democracy 
is  to  see  to  it  that  these  privileges  of  fortune  shall  be 
only  equal  to  the  strength  and  the  intelligence  em- 
ployed in  acquiring  them.  Thus,  an  arrow  can  fly 
through  the  air  only  in  proportion  as  we  have  bent 
the  bow  to  shoot  it.  A  slight  flexion  of  the  bow  and 
the  arrow  makes  a  short  flight.  We  bend  the  bow 
with  force  and  the  flight  is  long.  In  human  life,  a 
democracy  disposes  of  existence  in  such  a  way  that  no 
one  is  able  to  shoot  his  arrow  farther  than  the  force 
used  in  bending  the  bow  will  permit  him. 

Your  husband,  madam,   gives   a  very  synthetic   de- 


52        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

scription  of  our  electoral  system,  and  he  seems  to  see 
a  national  peril  in  our  faith  in  a  "government  of  the 
people,  for  the  people  and  by  the  people."   He  believes 
that  the  puffed  up  working  man  will  become  a  destroyer 
of  society.     We  do  not  believe  that  this  ample  liberty 
for  the  workingman  to  impose  his  ideas  in  the  election 
booths  need  bring  dangerous  results  to  the    country. 
On  the  contrary,  this  is  the  legal  way  gradually  to 
change  our  social  organization  already  so  greatly  modi- 
fied in  the  course  of  our  history.     This  is  the  way  in 
which  the  aspirations  of  all  our  citizens  are  tried  out 
openly  and  the  reason  why  those  of  the  majority  succeed. 
This  is  the  safety  valve  of  the  machine  of  progress.    The 
violent  revolutions  and  counter  revolutions  in  Russia  are 
a  consequence  of  the  traditional  oppression  of  the  work- 
ingman In  the  domain  of  an  aristocracy.    If  Russia  had 
had  a  half  century  of  democratic  organization,  it  would 
not  have  fallen  into  the  present  chaotic  condition  that 
your  husband  condemns.    We  do  not  know  as  yet  what 
will  be  the  end  of  Russia,  but  if  it  should  find  the  path  of 
democracy  while  struggling  desperately  in  the  darkness 
to  find  its  destiny,  Russia  will  stagger  the  world  with  its 
progress. 

The  suggestion  that  your  husband  has  seen  m  some 
of  our  newspapers  that  we  should  suppress  the  right  of 
the  socialist  to  vote  does  not  entitle  him  to  accept  this 
idea  as  representative  of  a  tendency  of  our  thought. 
You  will  see,  madam,  in  our  daily  papers,  in  our  maga- 
zines, in  public  speeches  and  in  books  the  most  out- 
rageous and  contradictory  ideas.  This  is  only  one  of 
the  manifestations  of  our  democracy,  in  which  every- 
body thinks  himself  authorized  to  express  his  opinions, 
whatever  they  may  be.     In  other  countries  the  pro- 


DEMOCBACY  53 

fessicn  of  thinking  and  expressing  opinions  is  restricted 
to  the  educated  classes,  or  to  those  who  make  their  liv- 
ing with  their  pen.  Here  every  one  says  what  he  thinks, 
and,  as  is  natural,  some  perfectly  preposterous  opinions 
are  expressed.  The  observer  who  studies  our  country 
should  not  forget  that  this  is  a  trait  of  our  national 
idiosyncrasy,  or  his  comments  will  contain  many  mis- 
taken inferences. 

This  free  expression  of  the  opinion  of  all  is  a  demo- 
cratic school.  In  our  schools  public  speech  is  a  branch 
•of  the  usual  course  of  study,  not  a  luxury,  but  simply 
a  means  to  enable  every  one  to  express  his  opinion  pub- 
licly without  self -consciousness.  If  errors  come  to  light, 
it  matters  as  little  as  if  a  boy  does  his  school  task  wrong 
in  the  class  or  makes  a  mistake  in  his  manual  training 
work.  It  serves  as  a  step  onward  to  better  things.  Each 
day  we  see  incorporated  more  new  elements  into  the 
realm  of  citizenship,  and  from  the  most  humble  ranks 
there  rise  up  men  who  turn  out  to  be  torchbearers  in 
their  different  walks  of  life. 

Unquestionably  there  is  in  my  country  still  much  ig- 
norance and  much  poverty  to  be  reclaimed.  Your  hus- 
band asks  you  to  read  Upton  Sinclair's  books  to  get 
an  idea  of  the  poverty  among  the  working  classes.  This 
pauperism  is  found  chiefly  among  the  European  immi- 
grants who  have  not  as  yet  adapted  themselves  to  our 
democracy.  We  have  in  our  country,  that  receives  this 
immense  European  immigration,  more  than  five  mil- 
lions who  cannot  yet  speak  our  language.  In  Chicago 
alone,  madam,  the  city  from  which  your  husband  writes, 
my  own  native  city,  one-third  of  its  inhabitants  are 
foreigners ;  another  third  is  composed  of  sons  of  foreign- 


54        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

ers,  and  of  the  other  third,  a  third  part  have  either 
father  or  mother  a  foreigner.  We  are  building  up  our 
democracy  of  foreign  materials ;  we  are  making  a  monu- 
ment out  of  clay  brought  from  across  the  sea. 

To  study  the  living  conditions  of  our  workingman  one 
should  not  choose  as  a  type  the  recently  arrived  immi- 
grant, who  has  not  had  as  yet  the  time  to  adapt  himself 
to  our  ways;  but  any  one  who  travels  a  little  in  our 
country,  and  will  take  the  time  to  visit  the  homes  of 
American  workmen,  will  find  carpenters,  mechanics, 
painters  and  workingmen  of  all  the  industries  living  in 
their  own  houses,  with  one  or  two  baths,  with  parlors, 
pianos  and  libraries,  and  more  comforts  than  those  of 
the  middle-class  of  a  generation  ago.  This  is  not  the 
rule  as  yet,  but  it  tends  to  become  more  so  every  day. 

I  do  not  believe,  madam,  that  the  happiest  working 
classes  are  to  be  found  in  Germany,  as  your  husband 
says.  They  have  been  systematically  trained  into  being 
submissive  automata.  They  have  no  such  opportunities 
as  the  workingmen  in  the  United  States,  where  every  day 
one  sees  men  of  the  humblest  origin  rising  to  social, 
scientific,  economic  and  political  heights.  As  our  ex- 
ambassador  Mr.  Gerard  says:  "In  Germany  all  the 
higher  offices  are  held  by  the  members  of  the  Prussian 
nobility.  Germany  is  still  the  country  of  great  land- 
holders. Laws  that  have  been  abolished  for  years  in 
England,  still  exist  in  Germany  to  permit  these  enor- 
mous estates  to  pass  from  one  generation  to  another 
without  being  divided  up.  The  workingmen  of  German 
cities  work  longer  hours  and  earn  less  than  in  any  other 
part  of  the  world.  More  than  fifty-five  per  cent  of 
the  families  in  Berlin  live  in  one  room."  I  have  quoted 
this  to  you,  madam,  merely  to  answer  the  expressed 


DEMOCRACY  55 

belief  of  your  husband  that  an  oligarchy  insures  the 
greater  well-being  to  the  workingman.  It  will  not  be 
necessary  to  add  that  in  the  countries  of  Latin  America 
the  condition  of  the  workingman  is  infinitely  inferior. 

I  do  not  pretend  that  we  have  reached  perfection. 
Far  from  it.  Our  country  is  a  democracy  in  the  making 
and,  as  in  all  works  of  construction,  it  presents  still, 
alongside  the  parts  already  made  and  finished,  crude 
material,  stone,  sand  and  lime,  in  formless  piles.  When 
an  artist  is  fashioning  a  piece  of  sculpture,  you  will  see 
by  the  side  of  the  work  in  course  of  creation,  masses 
of  shapeless  clay  as  yet  nothing  but  a  lump  of  common 
earth.  Maybe  the  head  is  finished;  maybe  the  soul  is 
already  there,  but  we  shall  not  be  able  to  appreciate  the 
beauty  of  the  composition  until  the  whole  is  finished. 
It  is  not  right  to  judge  the  work  by  the  formless  mass 
of  clay  that  has  not  yet  taken  on  the  lines  the  artist 
means  to  give  it.  The  construction  of  a  democracy 
is  a  far  more  laborious  piece  of  work  than  the  pro- 
duction of  the  finest  masterpiece  of  the  most  gifted 
artist;  there  must  be  formless  masses  of  material  while 
the  work  is  in  progress,  and  of  this  mere  clay  no  one 
can  judge  until  it  has  been  given  the  breath  of  life. 
In  our  democracy  only  the  first  blows  of  the  chisel  have 
made  their  mark.  Let  us  not  be  so  superficial  as  to 
condemn  the  work  in  preparation  because  it  has  not 
yet  received  the  last  finishing  touches.  Let  us  wait  and 
help  to  give  life  to  the  monument  that  is  the  work  of 
our  hands,  of  our  brain  and  of  our  heart. 

Very  sincerely, 
Your  Friend  from  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IMPERIALISM 

MISS  JONES  now  looked  for  these  letters  from 
Chicago  with  the  same  interest  with  which  she 
expected  her  own  private  correspondence ;  and 
although  their  contents  naturally  hurt  her  feelings,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  she  vehemently  desired  to  read 
the  letters  because  they  expressed  so  well  what  Latin 
Americans  in  general  were  thinking  about  her  country. 
One  morning  she  noticed  at  once  the  elegant  and  ener- 
getic handwriting  of  the  Chicago  correspondent  among 
the  heap  of  letters  piled  up  on  her  desk.  That  morning 
Miss  Jones  did  very  little  work  in  her  office.  Reading 
and  meditating  upon  this  long  letter  took  up  all  her 
time  until  the  luncheon  hour.  The  letter  was  as  fol- 
lows: 

Chicago,  111.,  ,  1918. 

My  Dear  One : — 


One  frequently  sees  it  stated  in  the  newspapers  of  this 
country  that  a  democracy  offers  guarantees  of  peace  to 
the  world,  whereas  an  aristocracy  is  a  threat  of  war  to 
all  humanity ;  that  it  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  conquer 
Germany  in  order  to  make  democracy  safe  and  give  peace 
to  the  world.    I  cannot  see  upon  what  this  assertion  could 

56 


IMPERIALISM  57 

logically  be  based.  The  United  States  boasts  of  being 
a  democracy,  and  has,  nevertheless,  waged  war  against 
Mexico  for  the  purpose  of  seizing  her  northern  provinces ; 
it  has  made  war  against  Spain  to  get  possession  of  Puerto 
Rico  and  the  Philippines,  and  upon  Colombia  to  seize 
Panama.  In  less  than  a  century  they  have  annexed,  by 
right  of  conquest,  a  million  square  miles  of  what  was 
formerly  Latin  American  territory. 

Among  these  conquests  are  the  taking  of  Texas  and  of 
sixjmore  States  that  were  Mexican  possessions  before  the 
American  invasion,  which  was  pushed  even  to  the  ancient 
Aztec  capital.  This  was  the  imposition  of  the  southern 
slave  States.  Those  seven  States,  in  which  there  was 
no  slavery,  were  taken  precisely  so  that  slavery  might 
be  established  in  them,  thus  degrading  them  socially  in 
order  to  secure  a  larger  representation  from  the  southern 
States  as  partisans  of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Congress. 

This  policy  of  aggression  and  conquest,  this  imperial- 
ism without  precedent  in  latter  days,  has  been  shown 
by  a  North  American  writer,  William  Hard,  in  an  ultra- 
sensational  article  severely  condemned  by  the  American 
government.  It  was  published  in  the  Metropolitan 
Magazine.  The  author  imagines  a  conversation  between 
Wilson,  the  Kaiser,  Yenizelos,  the  prime  minister  of 
Greece,  and  a  bandit  of  the  Dominican  Republic,  in 
which  it  is  shown  that  the  United  States,  in  their  rela- 
tions with  Latin  America,  have  proceeded  without  a 
shred  of  honesty. 

The  United  States  is  unquestionably  the  most  im- 
perialistic country  in  the  world.  The  first  States  of 
the  Union,  since  those  times  when  the  English  Puritans 
landed  from  the  Mayflower,  have  not  been  satisfied 
later  with  reaching  out  toward  the  West,  even  to  the 


58        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Pacific.  They  have  desired  and  have  obtained  colonies 
in  distant  seas.  Koosevelt  has  defended  this  policy  of 
intervention  on  the  part  of  his  country  in  the  small 
South  American  republics  by  use  of  the  personal  argu- 
ment of  a  man  who  holds  a  big  stick  in  his  hands.  ' '  If 
I  have  a  happy  home,"  he  seems  to  say,  ''enjoying  there- 
in a  prosperous  life,  and  I  find  that  in  the  house  at  the 
right  hand  side  of  mine  they  make  a  great  deal  of  noise 
at  night,  and  do  not  let  me,  or  my  wife  or  children 
sleep,  I  am  justified  in  knocking  at  the  door  of  these 
neighbors  and  demanding  silence :  and  if  the  noise  con- 
tinues, I  have  the  right  to  use  my  big  stick  to  make  them 
keep  quiet/ '  An  argument  this  to  snuff  out  by  main 
force  the  revolutions  of  Mexico.  Continuing  this  phi- 
losophy, Roosevelt  has  said  almost  in  these  words:  "If 
in  the  house  on  the  left  they  have  in  the  yard  a  pile  of 
filth,  the  odor  of  which  infests  my  house  and  places  in 
danger  my  life  and  that  of  my  wife  and  family,  I  have 
the  right  to  rap  on  their  door  and  to  demand  that  they 
clean  up  their  premises,  and  if  they  do  not  do  so,  I 
compel  them  with  my  big  stick.' '  An  argument  this  for 
interfering  in  Ecuador  and  forcibly  cleaning  up  Guaya- 
quil, if  the  Ecuadorians  will  not  or  cannot  do  so.  Like- 
wise, Roosevelt  considered  himself  at  liberty  to  open  a 
door  (Panama)  for  his  own  use  in  his  neighbor's  house, 
when  by  doing  so  he  would  contrive  to  shorten  the 
distance  between  two  rooms  in  his  own  house :  the  room 
to  the  East,  New  York;  and  the  room  to  the  West,  San 
Francisco. 

Tyranny  will  always  find  a  suitable  pretext  to  warrant 
an  abuse  of  force.  Could  not  the  same  argument  be 
stretched  so  that  the  United  States  might  with  its  "big 
Stick"  rule  over  all  Latin  America?    The  United  States 


IMPERIALISM  59 

is  becoming  now  a  military — a  warrior  country.  They 
are  creating  a  stupendous  army  and  navy.  When  these 
forces  are  mustered  out  from  the  European  war,  will 
they  not  look  for  a  way  to  occupy  themselves  elsewhere  ? 
Every  organ  must  exercise  its  functions  or  it  dies.  Or- 
gans that  are  not  used  become  withered.  If  the  fish 
would  cease  to  swim,  its  fins  would  no  longer  function 
and  would,  in  course  of  time,  disappear.  If  a  species 
of  bird  should  not  fly  for  generations,  the  wings  would 
likewise  go,  just  as  the  blind  mole  does  not  need  to  see 
in  the  darkness  of  its  underground  galleries. 

The  United  States  has  been  imperialistic  in  the  past ; 
it  is  so  to-day  and  will  be  more  imperialistic  to-morrow. 
Consider  the  name  they  have  appropriated  for  them- 
selves. They  call  their  country  America,  and  its  citizens 
Americans.  Is  not  Canada  a  part  of  America,  and  are 
not  the  Canadians  Americans?  Mexico,  Brazil,  Argen- 
tina and  Chile,  are  they  not  a  part  of  America  and  are 
not  their  inhabitants  as  much  entitled  to  be  called 
Americans  as  those  of  the  United  States  f  But  no,  they 
have  taken  the  name  as  their  own.  If  the  United  States 
had  formed  their  country  in  the  old  world,  and  if  they 
had  conquered  European  Turkey  instead  of  the  land 
of  the  red  man,  they  would  surely  have  called  their 
country  Europe  and  their  inhabitants  Europeans,  that 
is,  if  they  did  not  call  it  THE  WORLD  once  and  for  all. 

It  is  particularly  serious  for  us  that  North  American 
capital  should  be  finding  its  way  to  our  country  in  ever 
increasing  quantities.  In  Chilean  mines  alone  they  have 
invested  more  than  five  hundred  million  dollars,  and 
this  is  only  the  start  to  capture  our  natural  resources,  as 
is  the  case  on  a  larger  or  smaller  scale  in  all  the  Latin 
American  republics.    If,  a  little  later  on,  there  should  be 


60        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

a  great  labor  strike,  with  attacks  upon  the  life  and 
property  of  the  North  American  owners  of  these  great 
mining  possessions,  might  not  these  men  of  the  "big 
stick"  ask  reparation  for  their  wrongs  and  indemnities 
for  their  losses,  and  might  they  not  even  venture  so  far 
as  to  interfere  in  our  internal  political  life  f  The  most 
powerful  navy  in  the  world  would  be  ready  at  their 
orders,  anxious  to  go  into  action.  "We  are  the  country 
of  iron,  of  coal  and  of  copper.  We  shall  always  be  an 
irresistible  lodestone  to  North  American  capital  and 
enterprise.  Although  we  are  so  far  away,  our  danger 
for  the  future  is  very  great.  Sometimes  my  conscience 
pricks  me  when  I  think  that  the  success  of  my  efforts 
to  sell  to  the  Yankees  my  copper  deposits  may  aggra- 
vate the  danger  to  which  our  country  is  exposed  in  the 
future.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  our  government  ought  not 
to  permit  the  sale  of  our  mining  resources  to  the  Ameri- 
cans, and  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  make  an  odious 
exception  for  them  alone  in  our  legislature,  we  should 
prohibit  the  sale  of  our  mines  to  foreigners  in  general. 

There  exists  a  veritable  Yankee  peril  for  Latin  Amer- 
ica. I  have  always  thought  so,  and  what  I  now  see  and 
read  only  confirms  my  suspicions.  Of  course,  there  are 
many  here  who  write  of  Pan  Americanism — of  inter- 
continental love ;  but  all  that  is  only  vain  chatter,  as  I 
can  easily  prove  to  you  by  quoting  from  books  and 
papers  published  here. 

The  University  professor,  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie, 
in  lectures  he  gave  at  Japanese  Universities  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation  in  the  cause  of 
international  conciliation,  said  these  words: 

"A  war  with  Mexico  ended  in  a  forced  sale  to  the 
United  States  of  a  territory  that  constitutes  now  six 


IMPERIALISM  61 

of  our  States.  Many  Americans  believe  that  this  war 
was  unnecessary  and  unjust,  but  a  glance  at  the  map 
will  show  that  this  territory,  for  which  the  United  States 
paid  eighteen  million  dollars,  was  an  integral  part  of 
our  national  dominion,  and  sooner  or  later  would  have 
had  to  come  under  the  flag  of  the  United  States." 

An  argument  this  which  would  serve  Germany  for 
claiming  the  Belgian  coast;  a  contention  that  would 
justify  Brazil  in  taking  possession  of  Uruguay.  It 
suffices  to  look  at  the  map  to  be  convinced  of  this.  This 
argument  was  proffered  by  an  American  professor  in  a 
foreign  country,  under  the  auspices  of  a  Yankee  founda- 
tion for  the  promotion  of  universal  peace ! 

A  magazine  called  The  Seven  Seas,  the  official  organ 
of  the  Army  and  Navy  League,  says  in  one  of  its  num- 
bers : 

"A  world  dominion  is  the  only  logical  and  natural 
final  aim  of  a  nation.  The  real  militarist  believes  that 
pacifism  and  humanitarianism  are  respectively  the  mas- 
culine and  feminine  manifestations  of  a  natural  degen- 
eration. It  is  the  absolute  right  of  a  nation  to  live  with 
the  greatest  possible  intensity,  to  expand,  to  found  new 
colonies,  to  become  as  rich  as  possible  through  all  appro- 
priate means,  such  as  armed  conquest,  commerce  and 
diplomacy. ' ' 

One  of  the  most  important  newspapers  of  Chicago, 
the    Chicago    Tribune,    prints    every    day    this   motto: 

1  'My  country,  in  her  intercourse  with  other  nations 
may  she  be  always  right;  but  my  country,  right  or 
wrong. ' ' 

A  famous  American  writer,  Alfred  Mahan,  says  in 
one  of  his  books: 


62        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

"As  civilized  man  has  every  day  a  greater  necessity 
for  lands  that  he  may  occupy,  he  is  always  in  search  of 
new  fields  where  he  may  establish  and  develop  himself ; 
but  as  it  happens  that  this  planet  is  entirely  explored 
and  exploited,  there  are  no  longer  desert  continents  or 
desert  isles;  there  are  only  territories  more  or  less  oc- 
cupied by  I  population  more  or  less  well  organized. 
Hence  proceeds  the  natural  direction  of  human  tides, 
whose  impulse,  i^ke  all  natural  forces,  follows  the  line 
of  least  resistance.  When  two  races,  one  highly  organ- 
ized and  the  other  of  inferior  and  rudimentary  organiza- 
tion, meet,  the  result  is  not  doubtful;  the  first  dispos- 
sesses the  second,  because  the  right  of  the  previous  occu- 
pant disappears  before  the  right  of  the  superior  ex- 
ploiter. ' ' 

According  to  Mahan,  to  dispute  about  the  morality  of 
the  phenomena  that  are  developed  in  accordance  with 
that  principle,  is  like  disputing  about  the  morality  of  an 
earthquake. 

What  do  you  think  of  the  philosophy  of  this  American 
sociologist?  The  Germans  themselves  might  adopt  and 
use  it  as  a  pretext  for  taking  possession  of  all  Russia  or 
all  France.  They  only  need  consider  themselves  su- 
perior exploiters  in  order  to  force  the  former  occupants 
to  retire  from  their  own  fatherland.  Consequently 
they  could  proceed  with  a  moral  right  about  which  it 
would  be  as  foolish  to  dispute  as  about  the  morality  of 
an  earthquake. 

Not  long  since,  at  the  invitation  of  President  Wilson, 
there  visited  this  country  twenty  newspaper  men  from 
Mexico.  While  in  Chicago  one  of  these  journalists, 
Senor  de  la  Parra,  made  a  speech  rather  unfriendly 
towards  the  United  States,  an  impertinent  speech,  if  you 
take  into  account  that  the  journalist  was  a  guest  of  this 
country.     But  if  it  is  true  that  the  utterances  of  the 


IMPERIALISM  63 

Mexican  were  out  of  place,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that 
certain  comments  of  the  public  press  were  much  more 
impertinent.  Arthur  Brisbane,  editor-in-chief  of  the 
Chicago  Herald  and  Examiner,  published  on  the  front 
page  of  his  paper  a  comment  on  the  remarks  of  the 
Mexican,  as  follows: 

"It  would  be  worth  while  for  the  Mexicans  to  study 
the  character  of  Woodrow  Wilson.  The  Kaiser  forgot 
to  make  that  study;  this  ought  to  serve  as  a  warning 
to  Mexico.  Mr.  Wilson  wishes  nothing  more  of  Mexico 
than  civility  of  the  damnedest,  commonest  kind ;  further- 
more, with  respect  to  the  lives  and  properties  of  Amer- 
icans, Mexico  ought  to  respect  these  lives  and  interests 
and  leave  to  one  side  its  one-fourth  Spanish  and  three- 
fourths  Indian  idea  that  the  United  States  are  afraid 
of  the  Mexicans.  In  only  one  of  the  twelve  war  camps 
this  country  has  all  the  material  necessary  to  tear  Mex- 
ico to  pieces  like  an  old  newspaper.  It  would  be  worth 
while  for  Mexico  to  proceed  with  courtesy  and  justice, 
especially  if  it  wishes  to  continue  its  life  as  a  nation. 
We  took  and  we  improved  a  large  piece  of  Mexico  not 
long  ago :  Texas,  etc.  The  next  piece  that  we  take  will 
be  larger.' ' 

This  editor  does  not  say  "may  be,,,  he  says  "will  be." 
H.  H.  Powers,  who  was  professor  of  the  famous  Uni- 
versity of  Stanford,  has  attracted  a  great  deal  of  atten- 
tion by  his  two  recent  books.  The  last,  "America 
Among  the  Nations,''  appeared  after  the  United  States 
had  entered  the  war,  and  after  the  declaration  that 
they  were  fighting  for  justice  and  democracy.  This 
book  might  be  quoted  almost  entirely  in  corroboration  of 
what  I  have  written.  Its-principal  merit,  in  my  con- 
ception, is  the  barefaced  frankness  with  which  it  speaks. 
I  reproduce  a  few  lines  taken  from  different  chapters: 


K> 


64        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

"Our  Latin  American  neighbors,  though  sharing  our 
preference  for  democracy  and  modeling  their  govern- 
ments as  closely  as  possible  on  our  own,  persist  in  re- 
garding us  with  mingled  suspicion  and  fear.  Neither 
our  protestations  of  friendship,  nor  our  democracy,  nor 
our  history  as  they  read  it,  reassures  them. ' ' 

Take  note  of  this  introduction  of  our  author,  that  I 
quote  only  that  you  may  compare  the  above  with  the 
rest  of  the  quotations  that  follow.  Speaking  of  the 
struggle  that  the  North  American  colonies  had  with  the 
Indians,  he  says:  "You  can  make  a  man  of  him  (the 
Indian)  in  time;  but  not  as  easily  as  you  can  displace 
him  with  a  better  man  already  made."  Speaking  of  the 
purchase  that  the  United  States  made  from  France  of 
possessions  that  really  belonged  to  Spain,  he  says : 

"The  reluctance  against  purchasing  stolen  goods  we 
did  not  feel,  as  indeed  nations  never  do. "  .  .  .  ' i  This 
acquisition,  the  largest  ever  made  in  all  our  history, 
was  accomplished  at  the  ripe  age  of  fifteen  years." 

Continuing  the  same  theme,  the  author  says: 

"Florida  was  necessary  to  complete  our  natural 
frontier,  in  itself  a  strong  incentive  to  aggression.  If 
it  had  been  objected  that  Spain  had  rights  in  Florida, 
the  answer  would  probably  have  been  that  incompetency 
invalidates  all  such  claims,  a  doctrine  instinctively  ac- 
cepted by  energetic  peoples  and  ever  a  cardinal  prin- 
ciple of  American  policy." 

Florida  was  perhaps  a  natural  frontier  coveted  by  the 
United  States;  but  notice  what  he  says  of  the  natural 
frontiers  of  his  country.  Mentioning  that  its  limits 
reached  at  one  time  to  the  Kocky  Mountains,  a  natural 
frontier,  he  says:   "But  the  American  people  have  not 


IMPERIALISM  65 

been  looking  for  stopping  places.  For  them  all  stopping 
places  have  been  starting  places,  and  that  forthwith.'' 
In  reality  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  Philippines,  Hawaii 
and  Alaska  are  natural  frontiers.  Why  not  the  Straits 
of  Magellan?     He  continues: 

"We  want  the  earth,  and  we  say  so  quite  frankly. 
Not  that  we  have  far  reaching  designs  of  world  empire, 
far  from  it.  Such  unholy  ambitions  have  always  been 
abhorrent  to  us.  We  merely  want  the  next  thing  be- 
yond. We  are  like  the  young  woman  who  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  craze  to  be  rich.  All  she  wanted  was  to 
have  money  enough  so  that  when  she  saw  something 
she  wanted,  she  could  buy  it."  .  .  .  " Incentives  to  the 
control  of  the  American  tropics  are  likely  to  be  found  in 
the  world's  growing  need  for  their  products,  the  neces- 
sity of  more  intensive  exploitation,  the  inefficiency  of 
their  peoples,  and  the  incompetency  of  their  govern- 
ments to  encourage  and  protect  foreign  enterprise.  It 
would  be  rash  to  predict  that  this  inherent  conflict  be- 
tween northern  energy  and  tropical  lethargy  will  not 
result  in  farther  extension  of  northern  control  over  the 
American  tropics.  .  .  .  Doctrines  do  not  determine  des- 
tiny but  destiny  determines  doctrines." 

Speaking  of  the  possibility  of  a  union  among  Latin 
American  countries,  such  as  has  formed  a  single  great 
nation  in  North  America,  he  says: 

"This  historic  method  will  not  be  applied,  certainly 
not  if  we  can  help  it,  and  as  a  consequence,  South  Amer- 
ica will  seemingly  remain  divided.  .  .  .  The  relation  of 
Latin  America  to  the  United  States  is  inherently  that 
of  a  protectorate,  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  the  rec- 
ognition of  that  relation.  This  the  Latin  nations  per- 
fectly understand  and  deeply  resent.  .  .  .  The  demands 
made  by  a  single  invention  like  the  automobile  are  rev- 
olutionary in  our  relations  to  the  tropics.  These  de- 
mands, the  tropics  in  the  hands  of  their  own  people, 


66        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

and  managed  in  the  true  tropical  way,  are  utterly  un- 
able to  supply.  Yet  there  is  almost  no  limit  to  their 
productivity  if  their  exuberant  nature  forces  can  be 
brought  under  human  control. '  * 

Notice  this,  my  dear  wife:  the  inhabitants  of  Brazil, 
where  rubber  is  produced  for  automobiles,  are  not  hu- 
man; and  this  author  says  previously  that  even  when 
one  can  make  a  man  of  a  savage,  it  is  much  easier  to 
eliminate  the  savage  and  put  in  his  place  a  man  already 
made.  A  decisive  argument  for  not  educating  Latin 
America,  but  on  the  contrary  replacing  the  native  popu- 
lation by  North  Americans  already  educated.  If  rub- 
ber is  the  magnet  of  Brazil,  nitrate,  also  not  produced 
in  the  United  States,  is  the  attraction  held  by  Chile. 
Many  of  us  fear  the  consequences  of  the  successful 
manufacture  of  synthetic  nitrate  in  this  country.  Maybe 
this  artificial  production  here  would  be  our  salvation  in 
the  future.  If  they  have  their  own  nitrate  they  will  not 
trouble  to  get  possession  of  ours. 

What  does  this  author  think  of  us  in  particular? 
Here  you  can  see:  " Chile  and  Brazil  have  a  hybrid 
population  with  little  power  of  organization  or  of  rigor- 
ous assertion."  This  shows  a  supine  ignorance  so  far 
as  our  country  is  concerned.  And  of  the  Filipinos,  what 
does  he  say?  "We  have  given  them  a  copy  in  minia- 
ture of  our  American  government,  a  Senate,  a  House 
of  Representatives,  a  Cabinet  and  all,  which  they  use 
much  as  a  Hottentot  would  a  high  hat." 

And  this  stupendous  book  by  a  professor  of  one  of 
the  most  famous  American  universities,  ends  with  this 
declaration  of  principles  that  could  not  be  in  more  fla- 
grant contradiction  to  all  the  previous  pages.  Speaking 
of  a  possible  objection  that  what  both  England  and  the 


IMPERIALISM  67 

United  States  aim  at  in  the  present  war  is  to  put  the 
Anglo-Saxon  on  top  in  place  of  the  Teuton,  he  replies: 

"No,  "what  we  want  is  the  English  principle  on  top 
instead  of  the  German.  This  principle  is  the  principle 
of  fellowship,  not  of  feudalism.  It  leaves  each  one  free 
to  live  his  own  life  and  think  his  own  thoughts  and  go  his 
own  ways,  and  to  see  the  power  and  the  greatness  of  fel- 
lowship in  this  liberty  of  its  members." 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  is  one  of  the  greatest  camouflages 
of  history.  "America  for  the  Americans "  is  a  tragic 
sentence  for  us.  The  first  word,  "  America/ '  means  the 
three  Americas;  and  the  last  word,  " Americans, ' '  means 
the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States. 

We  do  not  need  so  interested  a  tutor.  This  doctrine 
never  had  the  semblance  of  kindness  and  protection  for 
weak  Latin  America.  It  was,  from  the  beginning,  a 
protection  for  the  United  States  itself,  which  feared  the 
possession  by  Europeans  of  colonies  on  American  soil 
because  this  might  place  its  own  independence  in  danger. 
If  Mexico  had  become  German  they  would  have  had  to 
fear  that  some  day  Washington  or  New  York  or  San 
Francisco  would  have  to  be  German.  The  Monroe  Doc- 
trine will  be  in  the  future,  as  it  has  already  begun  to 
be,  the  anesthetic  to  be  used  by  Uncle  Sam  as  he  ampu- 
tates Central  America  and  South  America.  No  doubt, 
Americans  are  clever  surgeons ! 

What  wonder,  then,  that  South  America  should  hate 
the  United  States?  This  anecdote  might  well  be  a  true 
story:  A  Yankee  asks  a  citizen  of  Ecuador:  "Why  do 
you  not  clean  up  Guayaquil?  Americans  will  not  come 
to  such  an  insanitary  spot."  The  Ecuadorian  replies: 
"But  we  prefer  the  filth  to  the  Americans." 

J.  Gamble  Reighard  writes  in  the  Sunset  review 


68        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

"Who  said  that  the  South  Americans  wished  to  be 
Pan  Americans?  In  the  United  States  there  are  enthu- 
siasts who  write  and  speak  as  if  the  Latins  were  anxious 
to  form  closer  relations  between  our  country  and  theirs 
.  Latin  America  has  no  wish  to  learn  anything  from 
us  •  they  look  for  inspiration  to  the  Latin  nations  of  Eu- 
rope, to  which  they  are  related  by  ties  of  race  by  cul- 
ture and  by  all  natural  sympathies.  In  speaking  01 
Latin  America  we  ought  never  to  lose  sight  of  this  es- 
sential fact:  the  fundamental  difference  of  culture  be- 
tween the  Southern  Iberian  and  the  Northern  Anglo- 
Saxon.  ' ' 

This  is  the  truth.  We  are  two  opposed  worlds  acci- 
dentally bearing  the  same  name.  We  have  no  more  in 
common  than  have  William  Taft,  ex-president  of  the 
United  States,  and  William  Hohenzollern,  German 
kaiser,  only  the  name. 

A   matter   for   serious   consideration   is  that   Anglo- 
Saxon  America  wishes  to  devour  Latin  America.     The 
United  States  have  been  comparatively  slow  in  starting 
the  conquest  of  South  America  because  they  have  been 
so  busy  during  the  past  century  in  conquering  their  own 
continent.     The  same  thing  has  happened  in  regard  to 
their  industries.     They  did  not  look  for  foreign  trade 
in  the  beginning  because  they  had  first  to  supply  their 
own  market.     They  had  first  to  get  rich  by  exploiting 
their  own  resources.    Now  that  they  have  satisfied  their 
needs  in  this  respect  they  are  looking  about  for  foreign 
markets  to  conquer.    The  same  thing  will  happen  in  their 
thirst  for  territorial  conquest.     The  Monroe  Doctrine 
is  this :    A  glutton  who  is  eating  his  own  plate  of  food 
and  has  neither  time  nor  hunger  nor  stomach  to  eat  the 
dish  that  he  sees  farther  on.    He  understands  that  later 
he  will  have  time,  hunger  and  stomach  to  partake  of  it 


IMPERIALISM  69 

and  he  says  to  those  who  might  wish  to  help  themselves : 
"Let  no  one  touch  that  dish."  America  for  the  Ameri- 
cans !  We  hope  that  the  greedy  one  will  not  have  digested 
his  first  course  until  we  are  sufficiently  strong  to  de- 
fend ourselves. 

How  fortunate  it  is  that  Latin  America  for  the  most 
part  has  kept  herself  neutral  in  this  war.  No  matter 
how  much  the  great  nations  may  protest  to-day  about 
justice  and  equity  when  referring  to  the  weaker  nations, 
we  cannot  be  so  innocent  as  to  believe  in  them  even  when 
in  exceptional  cases  such  protests  are  made  in  transient 
good  faith. 

If  we  should  declare  in  favor  of  the  Allies  and  Ger- 
many should  triumph,  the  latter  would  take  us  after- 
wards in  her  fist  and  squeeze  us  as  one  does  a  lemon; 
if  we  should  side  with  Germany  we  would  be  cut  to  pieces 
quite  as  promptly  by  the  Allies.  And  which  side  is  going 
to  win?  We  do  not  know.  Whose  triumph  would  be 
to  our  advantage  ?  That  of  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 
It  would  be  better  for  South  America  that  neither  the 
Allies  nor  Germany  should  triumph.  Again,  in  a  prob- 
able future  war  between  Japan  and  the  United  States 
much  less  would  it  be  to  our  advantage  that  either  should 
triumph.  Men  have  a  conscience,  nations  have  none. 
As  Professor  Powers  says  in  the  book  that  I  have  men- 
tioned: "Doctrines  do  not  determine  destiny,  but  des- 
tiny does  determine  doctrines."  It  is  to  our  advan- 
tage that  there  should  be  a  balance  of  power  in  the 
world,  seeing  that  the  world  has  no  conscience.  An 
equilibrium  of  nations  is  the  only  salvation,  the  only 
security  for  small  nations.  When  this  balance  of  power 
ceases,  when  a  nation  believes  itself  to  be  stronger,  noth- 
ing is  respected.    Belgium.    The  great  nations  have  in- 


70        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

vented  a  maxim  that  is  above  all  moral  codes:  "The 
vital  interests  of  the  country  come  first."  Is  there  no 
parallel  in  the  world  for  the  case  of  Belginm  ¥  The  rape 
of  Panama. 

The  balance  of  power  among  the  great  nations  suits 
us  in  order  that  the  little  ones  should  be  respected. 
For  this  reason,  up  to  a  certain  point,  South  America 
has  been  respected.  The  United  States  has  kept  us  from 
being  conquered  by  Europe.  Europe  has  defended  us, 
as  far  as  she  could,  from  being  conquered  by  the  United 
States,  and  this  state  of  affairs  will  continue  if  none  of 
the  parties  in  the  fight  gain  an  absolutely  definite  victory, 
only,  of  course,  until  the  day  arrives  that  is  not  far  dis- 
tant' in  which  we  shall  be  respected  for  our  own  strength. 
South  America  is  the'  continent  of  the  future  and  we 
ourselves  want  to  fashion  this  future  according  to  our 
temperament,  according  to  our  soul,  according  to  our 
idiosyncrasy.  Latin  Americans  will  never  mix  with 
Anglo-Saxon  Americans.  It  is  impossible,  although  there 
should  come  thousands  of  thousands  of  the  youth  of 
South  America  to  study  in  the  universities  of  the  United 
States,  in  order  to  transplant  to  our  soil  this  civilization. 
Because  a  nest  of  duck  eggs  are  hatched  out  by  a  hen 
they  do  not  have  to  be  chicks  that  break  the  egg-shells. 
We  shall  always  keep  our  soul,  our  temperament.  Oil 
does  not  mix  with  water,  and  if  it  is  attempted  to  force 
the  mixture,  there  will  be  a  protest  that  may  be  violent 
even  on  the  part  of  the  sensitive  Latin  American  spirit. 
Speaking  of  this  I  wish  to  say 

Your  husband  who  adores  you 

•  ■■■  ■         #  • 


IMPERIALISM  71 

Miss  Jones  took  very  much  to  heart  the  task  of  an- 
swering these  letters.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  was 
speaking  to  the  whole  of  Latin  America.  Not  only  did 
she  retain  a  duplicate  of  her  notes,  but  she  also  care- 
fully copied  the  original  letters  from  Chicago.  At  first 
her  idea  had  been  to  use  many  of  the  items  for  some  fu- 
ture work  of  her  own,  but  when  writing  the  follow- 
ing comments,  she  began  to  see  that  the  publication  of 
these  letters  themselves  would  make  a  useful  book: 

Madam : 

This  letter  of  your  husband 's  has  caused  me  the  deep- 
est regret,  but  I  am  well  aware,  nevertheless,  that  it 
contains  a  synthesis  of  opinion  held  by  many  Latin 
Americans  with  regard  to  my  country.  They  distrust 
and  fear  us.  They  think  we  are  a  menace  to  their  peace 
and  their  future.  I  believe,  madam,  that  this  distrust 
and  terror  engenders  the  dislike  and  even  the  hate  that 
many  feel  toward  us. 

For  my  part,  I  entertain  a  great  love  for  Latin 
America.  I  believe  this  is  because  I  know  it  so  well,  be- 
cause I  have  studied  it  for  years,  because  I  have  read 
its  history,  because  I  foresee  its  future,  and  because  I 
regard  its  problems  from  its  own  point  of  view.  I 
know  and  I  understand  Latin  America,  and  for  these 
reasons  I  love  it.  Our  President,  "Woodrow  Wilson,  in  an 
address  which  he  delivered  in  Buffalo  not  long  since 
to  the  workingmen  of  my  country,  referred  to  a  reply 
of  Charles  Lamb  when  they  asked  him  if  he  hated  a 
certain  person  of  whom  they  were  speaking.  The  cele- 
brated English  author  replied:  "No,  how  could  I  hate 
him  if  I  know  him  ? ' ' 

To  know  a  person  intimately,  to  penetrate  into  the 


72        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

deep  recesses  of  his  soul,  to  be  able  to  interpret  in  the 
light  of  all  circumstances,  every  reflection,  whether  real 
or  fancied,  every  gesture,  every  action  of  a  person, 
signifies  to  have  a  close  regard  for  that  person.  Katusha, 
the  fallen  woman,  condemned  for  a  crime  committed  in 
the  house  of  ill  fame  where  she  plied  her  evil  trade,  was 
intimately  known  by  Prince  Neckludoff,  who  followed 
her  into  exile  in  Siberia,  and  he,  a  prince,  loved  that 
woman  and  asked  her  to  be  his  wife.  The  secret  of 
love  is  to  know,  to  understand,  to  see  beyond  the  super- 
ficial fallacy  of  vision;  and  the  secret  for  hating  is  to 
ignore,  to  see  all  through  a  distorted  lens  and  to  willfully 
reject  the  view  bared  in  the  radiant  light  of  the  noon- 
day sun. 

The  Americas  do  not  know  each  other.  Any  person 
of  culture  in  your  country  knows  the  history  of  Egypt, 
but  ignores  completely  our  history,  just  as  we  ignore 
the  history  of  Latin  America.  This  mutual  ignorance 
appears  to  have  been  officially  fostered  if  we  examine 
the  curricula  of  public  schools  and  colleges  in  both 
American  continents.  The  result  is  that  each  forms 
hasty  judgments  that  are  not  based  on  reliable  informa- 
tion. 

Your  husband,  madam,  sees  our  country  always 
through  a  prism  of  suspicion  and  fear,  and  for  that 
reason  all  looks  gloomy  to  him;  he  interprets  all  by  the 
same  stereotyped  formula.  He  conceives  an  imperalis- 
tic  country,  accepting  a  qualification  by  which  they 
refer  to  us  quite  commonly  in  Latin  America.  However, 
the  truth  is  that  we  are  not  imperialistic  and  every  day 
we  are  farther  from  being  so.  We  are  fighting  to-day, 
offering  the  blood  of  our  best  sons  and  the  accumulated 


IMPERIALISM  73 

fortunes  of  a  century  precisely  to  strangle  foreign  im- 
perialism. 

Your  husband,  my  dear  lady,  has  come  to  see  even 
in  our  name  "America"  an  intention  of  conquest.  The 
name  is  wrong.  It  is  not  improper  to  call  ourselves  the 
"United  States  of  America/ '  but  wrong  if  we  call  our- 
selves "  Americans. ' '  This  is  due  only  to  the  difficulty 
there  is  in  giving  us  another  name.  It  is  easy  to  form 
the  name  Argentine  from  Argentina,  Chilean  from  Chile, 
Brazilian  from  Brazil,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  coin  a  word 
like  "Unitedstatian"  of  America.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  many  names  in  history  ill  bestowed  which  re- 
main as  they  are  because  custom  sanctions  it.  The  whole 
American  continent  ought  to  be  called  Columbia  and  not 
America,  because  it  was  Christopher  Columbus,  and  not 
Amerigo  Vespucci,  who  discovered  it. 

We  speak  in  America  of  the  Orient,  meaning  the 
lands  of  ancient  civilization  situated  to  the  east  of 
Europe,  because  they  are  called  by  this  name  over 
there;  whereas  we  should  really  call  this  part  of  the 
world  the  Occident,  as  it  lies  to  the  west  of  us. 

The  conquest  of  our  continent  from  one  sea  to  the 
other  has  obeyed  the  necessity  to  which  Mahan  refers, 
that  of  a  more  gifted  people  displacing  the  Indian  who 
lived  on  an  inferior  plane  of  civilization. 

This  conquest  of  our  continent  is  parallel  to  the  con- 
quest made  by  you  South  Americans  in  your  own  con- 
tinent. In  this  necessary  struggle  between  the  Indians 
and  the  Americans  there  were  doubtless  less  cruelties 
than  in  the  conquest  of  Mexico  or  of  Peru.  For  some 
time  it  was  a  general  belief  in  Spain  that  the  Indians 
had  no  soul. 

It  is  sufficient  to  see  how  our  government  treats  the 


74        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Indians  to-day,  the  schools  created  for  them,  the  way 
in  which  they  are  protected  and  helped  in  the  develop- 
ment of  their  properties,  to  understand  that  we  know 
our  duty  as  a  Christian  nation  toward  these  primitive 
inhabitants  of  the  soil.  To-day  there  are  nearly  ten 
thousand  Indians  enrolled  in  our  army  and  navy,  al- 
most every  one  of  whom  has  gone  voluntarily  to  fight 
for  his  country.  Last  year  it  was  calculated  that  there 
were  some  three  hundred  and  forty  thousand  Indians  in 
my  country,  surely  many  more  than  inhabited  the  land 
when  the  first  colonists  landed  here.  These  Indians  un- 
questionably live  a  better  life  than  they  ever  lived  be- 
fore the  European  colonization. 

It  is  not  my  desire  to  make  odious  comparisons,  but 
we  must  admit  that  Latin  America  has  not  yet  taken 
seriously  its  obligations  toward  the  indigenous  inhabi- 
tant in  each  of  those  countries.  There  are  countries  like 
Bolivia  where  they  sell  them  along  with  the  live  stock 
of  an  estate.  Much  that  is  done  there  for  the  benefit  of 
those  poor  Indians  is  due  to  the  initiative,  sacrifices, 
devotion  and  money  of  our  people.  We  have  mission- 
aries, men  and  women,  even  in  the  heart  of  your  own 
country,  madam.  These  missionaries  of  both  sexes  go 
to  live  in  those  solitudes,  in  the  midst  of  the  Indians,  not 
for  the  sake  of  an  income,  which  is  ridiculously  small, 
but  urged  by  an  overwhelming  desire  to  serve  the  hum- 
blest of  the  human  race. 

It  seems  absurd  that  a  South  American,  in  judging 
us,  should  advance  as  proof  of  our  imperialism  the 
conquest  of  our  continent  in  the  struggle  with  the 
original  inhabitants.  As  for  our  foreign  expansion,  there 
is  more  than  a  little  to  say  in  our  defense,  and  I  hope 


IMPERIALISM  75 

that  you  are  sufficiently  interested  to  attend  to  what  I 
have  to  say. 

In  the  Monroe  Doctrine  your  husband  sees  a  tragic 
menace  for  the  future  of  Latin  America,  and  he  stamps 
it  as  having  had  an  ulterior  motive  from  its  very  be- 
ginning. I  agree  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  dictated 
partly  for  the  security  of  our  own  country.  It  was 
also  in  part  for  our  own  sake.  When  a  millionaire 
founds  a  hospital,  and  endows  it  for  the  express  purpose 
of  combating  the  plague  of  cancer,  is  it  not  also  to  his 
personal  interest  and  to  that  of  his  family  that  the  dis- 
ease should  diminish  in  his  city  or  his  country,  and  that 
they  should  be  safeguarded  by  the  experience  and  re- 
search which  he  has  promoted  ?  Does  it  lessen  the  merit 
of  his  philanthropy  if,  reciprocally,  he  and  his  family 
should  benefit  by  it?  Every  good  action  toward  others  re- 
flects upon  the  benefactor  as  there  is  reflected  in  a  mir- 
ror the  face  of  one  who  looks  in  it.  The  United  States  was 
with  Latin  America  in  its  campaign  for  independence, 
and  decided  later  to  uphold  that  independence.  The  Mon- 
roe Doctrine  has  been  of  service  to  South  America.  It 
has  been  an  easy  pillow  upon  which  the  Latin  American 
continent  has  been  able  to  rest  its  head  quietly  during 
its  childhood  and  first  youth.  When  no  longer  needed, 
it  will  be  relegated  to  oblivion,  just  as  the  cradle  is  sent 
to  the  lumber  room  when  it  is  no  longer  needed  by  the 
little  one. 

Your  husband  quotes  the  words  of  Professor  H.  H. 
Powers  to  prove  that  we  consider  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
an  acknowledgment  of  our  protectorate  over  Latin 
America.  If  there  has  been  any  subject  among  us  specu- 
lated upon  and  discussed  it  is  just  this  Monroe  Doctrine. 
In  almost  any  gathering  of  persons  who  discuss  this 


76       THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

doctrine  there  are  as  many  opinions  as  there  are  differ- 
ent kinds  of  raiment.  To  the  interpretation  of  Profes- 
sor Powers'  line  of  thought  as  exposed  in  such  stupen- 
dous citations  as  your  husband  quotes,  may  I  not  contrast 
that  of  our  own  ex-President  Roosevelt,  considered  even 
by  your  husband  the  most  imperialistic  of  Americans. 
He  says  the  following  in  his  autobiography : 

"The  Monroe  Doctrine  lays  down  the  rule  that  the 
"Western  Hemisphere  is  not  hereafter  to  be  treated  as 
subject  to  settlement  and  occupation  by  Old  World 
powers.  It  is  not  international  law ;  but  it  is  a  cardinal 
principle  of  our  foreign  policy.  There  is  no  difficulty 
at  the  present  day  in  maintaining  this  doctrine,  save 
where  the  American  power  whose  interest  is  threatened 
has  shown  itself  in  international  matters  both  weak  and 
delinquent.  The  great  and  prosperous  civilized  com- 
monwealths, such  as  the  Argentine,  Brazil,  and  Chile, 
in  the  Southern  half  of  South  America,  have  advanced 
so  far  that  they  no  longer  stand  in  any  position  of 
tutelage  toward  the  United  States.  They  occupy  to- 
ward us  precisely  the  position  that  Canada  occupies. 
Their  friendship  is  the  friendship  of  equals  for  equals. 
My  view  was  (and  is,  because  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  repeated 
this  on  several  occasions)  that  as  regards  these  nations 
there  was  no  more  necessity  for  asserting  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  than  there  was  to  assert  it  for  themselves.  Of 
course,  if  one  of  these  nations,  or  if  Canada,  should  be 
overcome  by  some  Old  World  power,  which  then  pro- 
ceeded to  occupy  its  territory,  we  would  undoubtedly, 
if  the  American  nation  needed  our  help,  give  it  m  order 
to  prevent  such  occupation  from  taking  place.  But 
the  initiative  would  come  from  the  nation  itself,  and  the 
United  States  would  merely  act  as  a  friend  whose  help 
was  invoked.  The  case  was  (and  is)  widely  difterent 
as  regards  certain— not  all— of  the  tropical  states  m 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Caribbean  sea.  Where  these 
states  are  stable  and  prosperous,  they  stand  on  a  foot- 


IMPERIALISM  77 

ing  of  absolute  equality  with  all  other  communities. 
But  some  of  them  have  been  a  prey  to  such  continuous 
revolutionary  misrule  as  to  have  grown  impotent  either 
to  do  their  duties  to  outsiders  or  to  enforce  their  rights 
against  outsiders.  The  United  States  has  not  the  slight- 
est desire  to  make  aggressions  on  any  one  of  these 
states.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  submit  to  much  from 
them  without  showing  resentment.  If  any  great  civil- 
ized power,  Russia  or  Germany,  for  instance,  had  be- 
haved toward  us  as  Venezuela  under  Castro  behaved, 
this  country  would  have  gone  to  war  at  once.  We  did 
not  go  to  war  with  Venezuela  merely  because  our  people 
declined  to  be  irritated  by  the  actions  of  a  weak  oppo- 
nent, and  showed  a  forbearance  which  probably  went 
beyond  the  limits  of  wisdom  in  refusing  to  take  umbrage 
at  what  was  done  by  the  weak,  although  we  would  cer- 
tainly have  resented  it  had  it  been  done  by  the  strong." 

It  is  important,  madam,  that  you  take  into  con- 
sideration that  our  constitution  prohibits  acquisition  of 
territory  by  conquest,  for  which  reason,  Florida,  the 
Philippines  and  Panama,  like  Louisiana  and  Alaska,  have 
all  been  territories  that  we  have  bought  and  paid  for. 
Even  in  the  cases  of  our  victorious  wars  we  have  amazed 
the  world  in  that  we,  the  conquering  nation,  have  paid 
indemnities.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  another  country 
in  the  world  whose  constitution  is  so  stamped  with  this 
principle  of  international  honor.  On  surrendering 
Alsace-Lorraine  France  had  to  pay  to  Prussia  the  highest 
indemnity  that  had  been  paid  in  the  world  up  to  that 
date,  and  this  in  a  war  provoked  by  the  victors.  Eng- 
land, France  and  Germany  have  colonized  in  thirty  years 
nine  million  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  square 
miles  of  territory,  containing  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine  million  souls,  which  is  equivalent  to  a  domain 
larger  than  all  Central  and  South  America,  and  con- 


78       TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

taming  nearly  twice  the  population  of  all  Latin  America. 
It  is  true  that  some  of  the  purchases  of  territory  made 
by  my  country  have  been  forced :  for  instance,  the  ter- 
ritory which  we  bought  from  Mexico  following  the  war 
which  brought  about  the  annexation  of  Texas,  a  State 
which  had  already  made  itself  independent  and  had  re- 
peatedly asked  to  be  taken  over. 

"We,  as  a  country,  in  our  already  long  history,  have 
committed  errors  and  injustices,  both  in  domestic  as 
well  as  in  our  foreign  policy.  Where  is  the  man  who 
has  not  committed  such  errors?  In  our  former  rela- 
tions with  South  and  Central  America  there  can  be  cited 
cases  of  actuations  that  redound  to  our  discredit  This 
our  present  political  leaders  constantly  recognize. 

How  have  these  injustices  occurred?  Moneyed  in- 
terests have,  on  several  occasions,  secured  objectives 
abroad  that  were  opposed  to  the  principles  of  stainless 
morality.  In  reading  our  history,  as  in  reading  the 
history  of  any  other  country  throughout  the  record  of 
mankind,  we  find  on  strict  investigation,  ever  the  struggle 
between  justice  and  unlawfully  acquired  privileges.  Our 
country  cannot  be  an  exception  to  this  universal  law,  and 
also  there  have  been  and  there  are  still  such  unjust 
privileges  among  us.  Great  corporations  have  been 
able  to  laugh  at  justice  and  to  carry  on  unlawful  busi- 
ness within  our  country,  in  defiance  of  the  rights  of 
our  citizens.  Who  can  doubt  that  trusts  like  these 
would  be  successful  in  their  perverse  way  when  ex- 
tending operations  to  foreign  parts?  This  has  been 
responsible  in  the  past  for  a  foreign  policy  at  times 
unjust.  It  led  us  to  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  to 
the  war  with  Mexico,  strenuously  resisted  by  the  moral 
forces  of  the  North.    That  was  a  triumph  of  evil  in  our 


IMPERIALISM  79 

domestic  struggles  between  good  and  evil.  It  is  the 
reason  why  Henry  Clay  was  not  elected  President  in 
the  campaign  that  gave  the  office  of  Chief  Executive 
to  Polk.  The  annexation  of  the  Mexican  territories  to 
our  country  was  an  imposition  of  the  slave  interests. 
It  was  triumph,  with  reverberation  abroad,  of  undue 
privileges,  just  as  other  privileged  interests  have  often 
triumphed  in  internal  affairs,  to  the  detriment  of  our 
own  citizens. 

But  any  one  can  see,  comparing  with  the  past,  that 
justice  is  getting  the  upper  hand  against  these  privileges 
in  internal  affairs.  Our  present  tendency  is  carrying  us 
toward  the  nationalization  of  all  public  utility  industries 
that  involve  privileges,  such  as  railroads,  telegraphs, 
telephones,  the  merchant  marine,  river  commerce,  and 
surely,  later  on,  mines  and  other  natural  resources.  Prom 
now  on  there  will  be  less  to  fear  from  the  foreign  policy 
of  the  United  States  than  in  the  past. 
|  If  there  are  examples  in  our  history  of  an  interna- 
tional policy  at  variance  with  morality,  such  as  can  be 
explained  in  the  way  I  have  just  indicated,  we  can, 
nevertheless,  offer  many  more  examples  in  which  we  have 
proceeded  according  to  a  moral  code  higher  than  that 
of  other  great  powers.  A  case  in  point  was  the  conduct 
of  President  Wilson  in  the  combined  action  of  England, 
Germany,  France  and  Japan  regarding  China.  In  this 
instance  our  country  was  opposed  to  the  interests  of 
our  capitalists  and  in  defense  of  the  purest  interna- 
tional ethics. 

My  dear  madam:  in  no  other  country  in  the  world 
is  there  being  waged  such  a  fight  against  interests 
which  abuse  their  power  as  that  in  which  we  are  en- 
gaged; and  as  imperialistic  wars  are  always  dictated 


80        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

by  these  interests,  the  conclusion  is  natural  that  our 
country  will  henceforth  be  less  involved  in  unjust  wars 
than  in  the  past. 

Nevertheless,  madam,  when  hastily  analyzing  some  ar- 
bitrary act,  we  are  liable,  instinctively,  to  darken  the 
colors  of  accusation  and  to  fail  to  give  due  consideration 
to  extenuating  circumstances  or  justification  on  the  part 
of  the  aggressor.  I  wish  to  analyze  for  you  the  two  cases 
to  which  your  husband  refers:  those  of  Panama  and 
of  the  Philippine  Islands.  The  truth  in  these  respects 
is  little  known  in  Latin  America,  as  I  have  had  ample 
occasion  to  notice  in  my  journeys  through  those  coun- 
tries. 

To  compare  the  case  of  Panama  with  that  of  Belgium 
is  possible  only  with  an  unfathomable  ignorance  of 
history.  The  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal  was 
a  necessity  felt  by  the  whole  world  since  Balboa  first 
crossed  the  isthmus  with  his  dauntless  companions  in 
adventure.  This  is  obvious  to  any  one  who  glances 
at  the  map  of  the  world. 

France,  impelled  by  the  genius  of  de  Lesseps,  construc- 
tor of  the  Suez  Canal,  tried  to  carry  out  this  enterprise. 
The  immense  capital  and  genius  of  France  failed  signally 
in  the  attempt. 

The  United  States,  by  means  of  the  Hay-Pauncefote 
treaty,  acquired,  as  far  as  Europe  was  concerned,  the 
right  to  take  up  the  work  that  had  been  begun  by  the 
Old  World.  The  government  of  my  country  hesitated 
as  to  whether  they  should  open  the  proposed  route 
through  Nicaragua  or  through  Panama,  the  first  country 
being  independent  and  the  second  a  part  of  the  Re- 
public of  Colombia.  Both  Nicaragua  and  Colombia 
used  every  effort  to  induce  us  to  give  them  the  prefer- 


IMPERIALISM  81 

ence.  The  experts  appointed  by  Roosevelt  to  report  on 
the  matter  gave  their  decision  in  favor  of  Panama. 

At  the  request  of  Colombia,  the  Hay-Herran  treaty 
was  celebrated,  conceding  to  us  the  right  to  construct 
a  canal  across  the  isthmus.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Re- 
public of  New  Granada,  the  predecessor  of  Colombia,  had 
guaranteed  us  this  right  since  1848.  But  Colombia  main- 
tained a  continual  state  of  anarchy.  Then  came  the  im- 
prisonment and  death  of  President  San  Clemente  and 
the  dictatorship  of  Marroquin.  This  despot  believed  he 
could  disregard  the  Hay-Herran  treaty,  and  so  gain  time 
to  allow  for  the  expiration  of  the  contract  with  the 
French  company  of  Panama,  whereupon  he  could  lay 
claim  to  the  forty  million  dollars  that  the  United  States 
was  to  pay  to  the  French  company. 

Not  only  was  my  country,  under  the  presidency  of 
Roosevelt,  highly  indignant  at  this  treatment,  but  also 
in  no  lesser  degree  was  Panama,  where  all  wished  ar- 
dently for  the  prompt  opening  of  the  canal  that  was 
to  benefit  this  region  in  so  many  ways.  Naturally  this 
provoke4  *  revolution  in  Panama.  I  say  naturally, 
madam,  because  Panama  was  accustomed  to  revolutions. 
From  1850  to  1902  there  had  been  fifty-three  revolutions 
or  attempts  at  such  in  Panama ;  that  is  to  say  there  had 
been  one  revolt  each  year.  Panama  brought  forth  revo- 
lutions as  naturally  as  an  apple  tree  bears  apples  every 
fall. 

Ex-President  Roosevelt  maintains  that  it  is  by  no 
means  a  fact  that  he  provoked  this  last  triumphant  revo- 
lution of  Panama.  "What  he  did  was  to  refrain  from 
helping  Colombia  to  reestablish  order,  as  he  had  helped 
on  former  occasions;  and  he  believed  that  he  had  good 
cause  for  such  abstention  given  the  conduct  of  Colombia. 


82        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

This  revolution  broke  out  just  at  the  time  when  Roose- 
velt had  prepared  a  message  to  Congress  asking  for  the 
relinquishment  of  the  Panama  Canal  project  unless 
they  were  prepared  to  pass  measures  compelling  Colom- 
bia to  respect  its  contracts.  In  spite  of  this,  a  treaty 
of  friendship  with  Colombia  is  pending  in  the  Senate, 
in  which  the  independence  of  Panama  is  recognized,  and 
by  which  my  country  pays  twenty-five  million  dollars  for 
the  Canal  Zone.  This  is  over  and  above  the  compensa- 
tion previously  given  to  the  Republic  of  Panama.  This 
treaty  will  be  approved  because  it  has  the  support  of 
public  opinion. 

The  Latin  Americans,  in  general,  know  but  one  version 
of  the  history  of  the  canal  and  certainly  that  version 
presents  a  hard  case.  I  have  studied  this  problem 
carefully  and  sympathetically  and  with  a  leaning  in 
favor  of  Colombia,  and  I  have  found  that  my  country 
has  conducted  itself  most  honorably.  We  Americans 
have  always  been  indifferent  to  the  opinions  that  for- 
eigners have  of  us  and  therefore  have  never  cared  to 
defend  ourselves  when  attacked  unjustly  beyond  our 
own  borders,  and  I  believe  that  this  idiosyncrasy  has 
had  fatal  consequences,  as  it  is  what  most  has  separated 
the  two  Americas. 

Neither  has  the  case  of  the  Philippine  Islands  been 
properly  explained  to  our  neighbors  of  the  other 
America.  Those  who  burn  the  midnight  oil  have  given 
many  reasons  for  our  war  with  Spain.  This  war  was 
not  waged  with  any  idea  of  conquest,  but  only  to  put 
an  end  to  the  oppression  by  the  Spaniards  in  Cuba 
after  that  island  had  been  fighting  for  years  for  the 
independence  that  its  Iberian  sisters  had  achieved.  The 
struggle   at  our  very  gates  was  unequal  and  bloody. 


IMPERIALISM  83 

If  at  the  door  of  your  house,  madam,  a  big  man  is 
abusing  a  little  boy,  would  you  and  your  husband  re- 
main impassive,  contemplating  the  fight?  We  did  not 
remain  impassive.  The  blowing  up  of  the  Maine  was  as 
if  the  two  combatants'  in  the  unequal  fight  had  broken  a 
window  in  your  house.  The  explosion  of  the  Maine  was 
like  the  tragedy  of  Sarajevo  in  the  present  world  war, 
the  iosignificant,  immediate  and  determining  cause. 

My  country  interfered  to  secure  Cuban  independence, 
a  thing  that  it  accomplished.  No  other  nation  of  the 
world  has  respected  thus  its  pledged  word  in  interna- 
tional obligations  of  this  sort.  Did  England  respect 
hers  in  Egypt? 

The  fact  that  the  Spaniards  had  warships  in  the 
Philippines  with  which  they  could  blockade  our  com- 
merce, made  us  fight  in  Manila  and  take  from  the 
Spaniards  their  possessions  of  the  Pacific;  possessions  as 
unjustly  and  cruelly  governed  as  the  same  Island  of 
Cuba.  It  has  not  been  and  is  not  our  wish  to  keep 
these  islands,  but  in  undertaking  to  give  them  their 
independence,  we  have  not  specified  a  fixed  date,  pre- 
ferring to  give  the  Filipinos  sufficient  time  to  prepare 
themselves  for  free  and  independent  citizenship.  Even 
when  the  Filipinos  are  ready  and  desirous  to  exercise 
the  rights  of  citizenship,  I  doubt  whether  we  should  ac- 
cept them  as  citizens  of  the  United  States  rather  than 
see  them  independent. 

No  efforts  have  been  spared  by  the  United  States  to 
prepare  the  Philippine  Islands  for  their  own  govern- 
ment. What  have  we  left  undone  to  help  their  in- 
habitants to  advance  as  a  race,  as  a  people,  and  not  as 
tools  of  their  North  American  rulers?  We  brought 
in  the  first  place  hundreds  of  young  Filipinos  to  be 


84        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

trained  in  our  country  as  teachers  of  their  own  race. 
The  educational  work  carried  out  by  us  there  has  no 
precedent  in  the  history  of  those  islands,  nor  in  the 
history  of  any  colony  of  any  country.  Egypt  is  an 
English  protectorate.  Egypt  has  eleven  million  inhab- 
itants and  the  Philippine  Islands  eight  million.  Egypt 
has  two  hundred  and  eighty-one  thousand  children  in 
its  schools,  and  the  Philippine  Islands  have  six  hundred 
and  ten  thousand.  This  educational  work,  let  it  be  said 
in  passing,  the  American  carries  with  him  wherever  he 
goes,  with  an  unquenchable  faith.  In  Alaska,  the  region 
of  the  eternal  snows,  in  the  cities  near  the  pole,  it  has 
created  schools  for  the  Esquimaux;  and  the  adult  Es- 
quimau attends  night  school  at  Shismareff ,  in  the  north- 
east of  Alaska. 

Professor  Powers  may  say  what  he  pleases  of  the 
American  policy  in  the  Philippine  Islands;  he  may 
say  that  our  attempt  to  teach  them  free  government  is 
like  putting  a  silk  dress  on  a  hippopotamus.  But  he  un- 
accountably forgets  that  he  is  dealing  witli  facts,  though 
he  claims  to  do  so  in  every  chapter  of  his  book;  and 
this  American  idealism,  this  American  faith  in  education 
is  for  us  an  Aladdin's  lamp,  a  fact  and  a  reality  in  spite 
of  Professor  Powers,  who,  without  realizing  it,  fre- 
quently poses  as  a  preacher  of  imperialism,  instead  of 
being,  as  he  pretends  to  be,  a  commentator  or  expounder 
of  existing  realities.  One  should  not  allow  one's  self 
to  be  carried  away  by  a  writer  who  has  fallen  in  love 
with  a  bit  of  colored  glass  through  which  he  sees  the 
sea,  the  mountains  and  the  sky,  all  of  the  same  color.  It- 
is  a  fact,  madam,  that  as  much  in  deciding  problems 
of  internal  import  as  in  its  foreign  affairs,  our  country 
raises  its"  moral  standard  higher  each  day  that  passes. 


IMPERIALISM  85 

This  can  be  seen  crystallized  in  President  Wilson's 
policy  which  has  dictated  a  new  international  code 
to  the  world.  Certainly  the  American  nation  would  not 
have  been  provoked  into  entering  this  struggle  with  the 
Central  Empires  if  it  had  not  believed  that  therein 
were  involved  principles  of  justice  and  morality. 

One  more  example  of  our  so-called  Imperialism  will 
suffice  to  illustrate  my  point.  There  is  a  case  in  which 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  refused  to  accept  the 
annexation  of  a  Latin  American  territory  after  the  in- 
habitants had  actually  voted  in  favor  of  it.  From  1844 
until  1861  the  Dominican  Republic  was  an  independent 
state,  and  was,  in  the  latter  year,  annexed  to  Spain,  only 
to  obtain  its  independence  once  again  in  1865.  It  was 
the  wish  of  President  Grant  to  annex  the  country  to  the 
United  States,  and  a  treaty  to  that  effect  was  ratified 
by  the  Dominican  people.  This  treaty  was  rejected  by 
the  American  Senate  by  a  tie  vote. 

The  growing  interest  of  the  multitude  in  international 
affairs;  Wilson's  new  plea  for  a  diplomacy  open  to 
the  bright  sunshine,  recommended  for  some  time  past  by 
many  American  writers;  the  frank  incorporation  of 
the  feminine  conscience  in  affairs  of  state;  the  greater 
influence  of  the  workingman  in  governmental  decisions, 
even  to  the  point  where  Presidents  and  Ministers  of 
State  have  to  persuade  and  convince  instead  of  driving 
them;  all  this  indicates  that  imperialism  will  be  an  ex- 
tinct social  species  in  the  second  half  of  the  twentieth 
century,  just  as  the  Megatherium  is  an  extinct  animal 
in  our  age;  and,  madam,  the  death  blow  will  be  dealt 
by  the  United  States.  Your  husband  is  right  in  say- 
ing that  the  world  has  no  conscience,  but  the  truth  is 


86        TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

that  my  country  is  making  powerful  contributions  to- 
ward supplying  the  omission. 

A  new  world  is  coming  into  existence:  the  epoch  of 
recognition  of  the  individual.  The  twentieth  century 
recognizes  the  strength,  the  worth  of  the  individual,  and 
believes  in  the  greatest  expansion  of  every  heart,  of 
every  brain  and  of  every  conscience.  This  century  will 
be  called  the  century  of  Democracy. 

No  matter,  madam,  that  the  Latin  Americans  will 
never  mix  with  the  Anglo  Americans,  as  your  husband 
says;  no  matter  that  we  have  different  temperaments 
and  a  different  idiosyncrasy.  So  are  the  peoples  of  Asia 
and  those  of  Europe  different.  But  this  does  not  mean 
that  in  the  world  we  cannot  entertain  a  mutual  respect 
nor  all  cooperate  in  the  work  of  progress,  of  truth,  of 
justice  and  in  beautifying  the  planet  that  is  our  com- 
mon home.  A  jasmine  flower  cannot  be  grafted  onto  a 
rose  bush.  Each  plant  has  its  own  peculiar  life,  and 
takes  in  varied  proportions  its  food  from  the  common 
soil,  and  their  respective  flowers  have  different  colors 
and  a  different  fragrance  to  perfume  the  air.  The 
different  peoples  and  races  of  this  great  garden  of  man- 
kind, madam,  are  distinct  plants  of  different  colors  and 
perfume,  destined  in  a  none  too  distant  future  to  enfold 
the  earth  in  an  atmosphere  of  tranquil  and  radiant 
beauty.  I  say  a  garden,  and  not  a  natural  virgin  for- 
est, because  the  garden  is  man's  work  and  the  forest 
where  laws  of  brute  nature  alone  have  their  sway  pre- 
sents to  us  the  case  of  a  giant  tree  spreading  imperialistic 
foliage  to  deprive  its  weaker  rivals  of  the  sunlight 

Please  do  not  believe,  dear  lady,  by  what  I  have  said 
that  these  notes  are  intended  to  uphold  the  pacifist  who 
lays   down  his  arms,   trusting   that   the  world   is,   or 


IMPERIALISM  87 

will  be,  actuated  only  by  principles  of  justice  in  its  inter- 
national relations,  but  looking  at  the  history  of  man- 
kind in  general,  we  have  to  recognize  that  the  trend  is 
in  that  direction.  See  how  every  nation  now  seeks  to 
justify  its  warfare  as  defensive,  whereas  in  ancient 
times  no  pretext  for  conquest  was  considered  necessary. 
But  the  truth  is,  the  principles  of  individual  morality 
accepted  by  every  nation  as  binding  within  its  bound- 
aries are  replaced  by  blind  egotism  when  treating  of  in- 
ternational relations.  H.  H.  Powers  is  right,  in  a  way ; 
but  in  prophesying  the  future  he  does  not  see  the  new 
forces  which  will  be  in  the  way  of  future  wars  and  will 
make  unjust  wars  impossible  on  the  part  of  my  country. 
By  the  great  affection  I  feel  for  Latin  America,  and 
because  I  understand  it  better  than  most  of  my  country- 
men, I  recommend  you  to  arm  yourselves  to  the  full 
extent  of  your  ability.  After  this  war  is  over  sad  times 
are  surely  coming  for  the  world.  But  while  she  arms, 
Latin  America  needs  to  develop  itself  educationally  and 
economically.  I  do  not  forget  that  Brazil  alone  is  bigger, 
territorially,  than  my  country,  excluding  Alaska,  and 
that  it  has  as  many  or  more  natural  resources  than  the 
"United  States.  Chile,  although  so  small,  is  a  country 
whose  mountains  are  in  great  part  made  of  iron,  and 
whose  subsoil,  in  enormous  extensions,  is  of  coal.  As 
these  are  the  magnets  of  civilization,  it  will  come  to  pass 
that  great  industrial  centers  will  make  of  Chile  a  dense 
manufacturing  country.  Your  country  will  make  itself 
respected  not  for  its  natural  undeveloped  riches  and  its 
untrained  population,  but  by  the  natural  resources  that 
are  put  to  good  use,  which  implies  education  of  the 
people  who  develop  these  riches.  China,  with  immense 
natural  resources,  and  with  an  enormous  population,  has 


88        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

not  been  able  to  make  itself  respected.  Traditional 
fanaticism  has  impeded  their  penetrating  to  the  depths 
of  the  earth  and  therefore  its  great  deposits  of  iron  only 
now  are  about  to  be  exploited. 

I  firmly  believe  that  your  husband  is  mistaken  when 
he  advocates  the  idea  that  the  South  American  countries 
should  forbid  the  development  of  the  natural  resources 
of  their  territories  by  foreign  nations,  and  by  my  coun- 
try in  particular. 

It  is  precisely  capital  that  Latin  America  needs  for 
its  development.  Capital  has  to  come  from  the  financial 
centers  of  the  world.  In  importing  such  capital  the 
younger  nations  give  material  and  moral  impetus  to  the 
dormant  national  forces.  Seclusion  in  this  epoch  of 
internationalism  is  like  the  Chinese  fanaticism  that  pre- 
vents the  opening  up  of  the  entrails  of  the  earth.  To 
prevent  foreign  capital  from  carrying  away  too  much  of 
the  national  wealth,  the  Latin  American  governments 
ought,  in  my  opinion,  always  to  be  partners  or  stock- 
holders in  these  great  foreign  enterprises  that  are  ex- 
ploiting your  natural  resources,  and  to  invest  the  re- 
spective incomes  in  the  education  of  all  your  citizens. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  American  who  has  brought 
and  will  in  future  bring  his  industrial  enterprise  to 
Latin  America  should  necessarily  be  hated  there.  I 
know  of  many  cases  in  which  they  are  admired  and  be- 
loved. Your  husband  loses  no  opportunity  to  illustrate 
his  points  with  jest  and  anecdote,  taking  for  granted 
that  these  have  a  basis  of  truth,  however  great  the 
exaggeration  that  makes  us  laugh.  This  method  is  some- 
what risky.  I  could  also  illustrate  my  statements  with 
jokes  and  stories  which,  by  analysis,  would  show  no 
foundation  of  truth.    That  you  mav  see  the  method  is  not 


IMPERIALISM  89 

seductive,  I  am  going  to  top  the  story  of  the  Ecuadorian 
who  preferred  filth  to  Americans,  with  an  anecdote  I 
heard  in  South  America. 

A  South  American  lady — I  shall  not  say  of  what 
country — went  to  see  a  doctor  because  her  leg  pained  her 
sorely.  The  doctor  asked  to  see  the  leg  uncovered  so 
that  he  could  examine  it.  The  lady  blushed  and  refused 
to  permit  it.  Thinking  that  it  was  a  case  of  bashfulness, 
the  doctor  insisted,  whereupon  the  young  lady  admitted 
at  last,  red  with  shame:  "To-morrow,  doctor,  I  am  not 
prepared."  The  doctor  understood,  and  told  her  that 
she  might  return  the  following  day.  The  next  day  the 
doctor  on  examining  the  leg,  and  seeing  nothing  much 
the  matter  with  it,  wished  to  compare  it  with  the  other. 
Blushing  again,  the  girl  replied  once  more :  ' '  To-morrow, 
doctor,  I  am  not  prepared." 

"Would  it  not  be  cruel  to  make  a  deduction  from  this 
story,  madam?  Let  us  pair  off  and  forget  the  two 
anecdotes,  the  one  about  filth  preferred  to  Americans, 
and  that  of  the  South  American  girl  who  was  not  pre- 
pared. 

Having  studied  well  the  two  continents,  we  must  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  principal  difference  between 
the  two  Americas  is  in  the  more  retarded  evolution  by 
Latin  America.  With  the  material  and  economic  edu- 
cational advancement  of  Latin  America,  the  differences 
between  our  two  civilizations  are  disappearing.  I  be- 
lieve that  the  future  activities  of  my  country  in  the  re- 
publics of  the  South  are  destined  to  bring  about  a  greater 
evolutionary  progress  than  that  realized  by  European 
action.  The  American  carries  his  spirit  of  progress 
wherever  he  goes.  Note  the  case  of  the  great  plants 
for  the  extraction  of  copper  in  your  country:  Chuqui- 


90        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

camata,  El  Teniente  and  Potrerillos.  The  only  place  in 
Chile  where  the  consumption  of  alcohol  is  not  permitted 
is  El  Teniente  of  the  Braden  Copper  Co.  At  Chuqui- 
camata,  of  the  Chile  Exploration  Company,  in  regions 
formerly  desolate,  at  ten  thousand  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  sea,  in  the  midst  of  a  desert,  Chileans  have  the 
best  school  of  democracy.  Not  only  has  the  American 
taken  to  this  place  a  hundred  million  dollars,  creating  an 
industry  that  could  not  be  made  by  Chilean  capital,  and 
giving  life  to  a  dead  region,  but  an  example  is  here  shown 
to  all  the  rest  of  the  country  of  how  to  regard  the  human 
element  in  large  modern  industrial  works.  In  a  word, 
we  are  exporting  copper  from  Chile  and  importing  de- 
mocracy to  Chile.  This  will  apply  to  all  Latin  America, 
day  by  day,  on  a  larger  scale. 

A  Latin  America  evolutionized  to  the  diapason  of 
the  century 's  advancement,  a  Latin  America  that  cannot 
truthfully  be  taunted  with  a  seventy  per  cent  illiteracy, 
a  thirty  per  mil  mortality  or  a  consumption  of  thirteen 
quarts  of  pure  alcohol  per  head,  will  command  respect 
because  the  banishment  of  illiteracy,  the  decrease  in  the 
death  rate  and  higher  culture  bring  in  their  trail  added 
wealth,  greater  strength,  better  defense  and  more  se- 
curity. 

Pardon,  madam,  this  very  long  postscript  to  your  hus- 
band's  letter,  and  believe  me  to  be 

Your  Sincere  Friend  from  Another  Continent. 


s 


CHAPTER  V 

BLACK  AND  WHITE 

HORTLY  after  sending  off  the  foregoing  notes,  an- 
other letter  arrived  at  the  Censor's  Office,  which 
Miss  Jones  read  with  eager  interest: 


Chicago,  111.,  1918. 

My  dearest : 


I  have  spoken  to  yon  at  length  about  Yankee  im- 
perialism and  of  its  external  ambitions  but  here  within 
there  is  also  another  imperialism.  Not  only  have  the 
United  States  colonies  in  distant  seas ;  they  have  colonies 
on  their  own  continent.  They  have  imported  colonies. 
Afroyankeeland  is  the  great  interior  colony  of  this 
country,  and  never  in  the  world's  history  has  a  colony 
been  treated  with  more  rigor  and  cruelty. 

The  Yankees  have  enriched  our  language  with  several 
very  significant  words  representing  ideas  purely  their 
own,  such  as  "bluff"  and  "lynch."  Lynch!  In  other 
countries  this  word  has  not  been  coined,  simply  because 
it  has  not  been  needed.  One  cannot  think  of  negroes 
without  thinking  of  lynch  law,  just  as  one  cannot  think 
of  fire  without  smoke. 

The  United  States  has  about  twelve  million  negroes, 
though  some   claim   that  the   number  reaches  sixteen 

91 


92        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

million,  if  all  those  with  some  taint  of  African  blood 
are  included.  These  negroes  are  not  intruders  who 
have  come  to  invade  America  of  their  own  free  will. 
The  thirst  for  gold  of  the  primitive  planters  brought 
them  by  main  force  from  the  Dark  Continent,  and  here 
used  them  as  beasts  of  burden.  These  negroes  were 
hunted  like  wild  animals  on  the  coasts  of  Guinea.  At 
first  the  captains  of  slave  ships  engaged  in  the  hunt 
themselves,  but  centers  were  soon  established  along  the 
African  coast  where  negroes  were  purchased  from  the 
chiefs  of  the  slave-hunting  tribes.  These  centers  were 
called  slave  markets.  Once  on  board,  the  slaves  were 
chained  in  couples  and  transported  under  much  worse 
conditions  than  those  now  accorded  to  animals.  Many 
succeeded  in  jumping  overboard  with  their  chains,  pre- 
ferring death  to  the  fate  awaiting  them.  A  captain 
always  counted  upon  losing  by  involuntary  death  or 
from  suicide  a  fourth  part  of  his  cargo  of  negroes,  but 
the  trade  was  always  remunerative,  since  back  in  the 
year  1700  an  adult  negro  was  salable  at  from  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  to  two  hundred  dollars ;  boys  bring- 
ing from  fifty  to  sixty. 

Soon  the  business  of  raising  negroes  grew  in  this 
country,  on  the  same  basis  as  breeding  pigs  and  sheep. 
Virginia  and  Maryland  were  famous  for  their  breeds  of 
negroes,  and  healthy  negro  women  were  sold  and  forced 
to  produce  offspring  with  any  male  whom  the  master  of 
the  plantation  might  select. 

That  is  to  say,  these  negroes  of  the  United  States 
came  from  Africa  neither  of  their  own  free  will,  nor 
with  pleasure,  nor  were  those  born  here  called  to  life 
by  the  yearnings  of  maternity,  but  by  the  sordid  avarice 
of  the  American  planter. 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  93 

"When  universal  conscience  abolished  slavery  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  (and  Chile,  our  country,  was  the  first 
to  abolish  it  in  America)  the  United  States  had  to  abolish 
it  also.  This  act  of  emancipation  came  later  in  the 
United  States  than  in  almost  all  Central  and  South 
American  countries.  Furthermore,  when  this  country 
snatched  from  Mexico  part  of  her  territories,  a  conse- 
quence of  the  war  over  Texas,  they  implanted  slavery  in 
the  once  Mexican  territories,  where  it  had  already  been 
abolished. 

And  I  believe  with  many  thinkers,  that  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  United  States  was  not  the  dictate 
of  a  collective  superior  conscience,  but  an  economic  strug- 
gle between  the  States  of  the  North  and  the  States  of 
the  South.  The  slave  States  could  use  negroes  to  good 
advantage  on  their  cotton  plantations,  whereas  the  non- 
slave  States  of  the  North  could  not  employ  them  in  their 
industries,  in  which  an  ability  was  required  that  they  did 
not  possess.  Therefore,  I  believe  that  it  has  not  been 
a  spirit  of  justice  and  humanity  that  has  inspired  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  this  country. 

At  all  events,  I  believe  that  the  negroes  would  live 
happier  to-day  by  returning  to  the  slavery  they  "en- 
joyed" before.  Every  slave  master  would  care  for 
them,  at  least  as  much  as  he  cares  to-day  for  his  cattle ; 
for  it  is  only  too  true  that  the  present  condition  of  the 
negro  is  unbearable,  and  a  disgrace  to  the  United  States. 
The  prerogative  of  manhood  is  denied  them  here. 

In  nearly  all  States  a  negro  may  not  marry  a  white 
woman,  nor  vice  versa,  under  penalty  of  fine,  imprison- 
ment and  absolute  nullity  of  the  marriage.  I  have  read 
of  a  divorce  granted  to  a  married  couple,  happy  until 
then,  because  a  child  born  had  crisp,  curly  hair  and 


94        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

thick  lips,  indicating  by  this  treacherous  atavism  that 
the  mother — who  appeared  white,  and  who  believed  her- 
self to  be  white,  and  who  her  husband  thought  was  white 
— had  had  among  her  progenitors  one  with  a  few  drops 
of  African  blood  in  his  veins. 

Negroes  may  not  travel  in  southern  States  in  rail- 
road cars  used  by  the  whites,  nor  are  they  received 
in  hotels  except  those  reserved  exclusively  for  the  col- 
ored race,  nor  may  they  attend  the  same  schools  as  the 
whites.  In  the  cemeteries  blacks  and  whites  must  not 
rest  together.  The  case  has  been  cited  of  a  mother  who 
was  not  permitted  to  rest  in  eternal  sleep  beside  her 
children  on  account  of  recent  restrictions  regarding  the 
burial  of  whites  and  blacks  in  the  same  cemeteries. 
Why!  there  are  buildings  that  have  separate  elevators 
for  whites  and  blacks;  you  may  enter  one  with  a  dog, 
but  not  with  a  negro.  The  negro  is  considered  as  a  leper. 
If  a  negro  buys  a  house  in  a  white  district  even  of  a 
northern  city  like  New  York  or  Chicago  (which  the 
whites  try  to  prevent  at  all  costs),  the  contaminated 
district  may  be  considered  as  dead  for  the  whites;  the 
value  of  all  property  in  the  vicinity  falls  immediately. 
Sometimes,  real-estate  firms  take  advantage  of  this 
method  to  depress  the  value  of  the  property  in  a  deter- 
mined section  of  the  city.  They  bring  negroes  to  re- 
side there  temporarily,  and  pocket  huge  profits  by  means 
of  heavy  purchases  effected  during  the  transitory  slump 
in  price  which  they  have  brought  about  themselves. 
Even  the  Trade  Unions,  with  their  famous  proletarian 
solidarity,  keep  the  negro  at  a  distance.  In  Chicago  no 
negro  is  permitted  to  become  a  member  of  the  white 
workmen 's  associations. 

It  has  been  found  impossible  to  send  them  all  to 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  95 

certain  States  intended  exclusively  for  them,  nor  conld 
they  be  transported  en  masse  to  the  Philippines  or  to 
Liberia;  therefore,  they  live  in  the  same  cities  as  the 
whites  and  are  seen  everywhere,  but  do  not  even  pray 
together  since  it  has  been  found  necessary  to  build 
separate  churches  for  the  negroes.  Here  there  is  a  black 
Christ  for  the  African  Americans  and  a  white  Christ 
for  the  European  Americans.  A  negro  may  distinguish 
himself  greatly  as  did  the  famous  Booker  T.  Washing- 
ton; he  may  even  arrive  at  a  position  of  extreme  emi- 
nence, but  the  country  will  make  an  outcry  if  the  Presi- 
dent should  ask  him  to  dinner — England  makes  no  out- 
cry when  the  same  negro  is  received  by  the  King  at 
Buckingham  Palace. 

And  what  is  a  negro?  All  the  rivers  in  the  world, 
the  Amazon  and  the  Mississippi,  the  Danube  and  the 
Nile,  the  Tangtse  Kiang  and  the  Orinoco,  the  thousands 
and  thousands  of  rivers  in  the  world  that  throw  their 
fresh  water  into  the  sea  do  not  sweeten  the  water  of 
the  ocean;  but  one  drop  of  negro  blood  that  falls  into 
the  veins  of  a  white  man  is  enough  to  blacken  entirely 
the  man,  his  children,  his  grandchildren  and  his  great- 
grandchildren. In  Alabama  the  law  says  that  a  negro 
is  one  who  has  received  black  blood  in  any  of  the  last 
five  generations. 

Here  the  life  of  a  negro  is  less  respected  than  that 
of  a  dog.  The  newspapers  tell  day  by  day,  as  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world,  the  news  that  a  negro 
has  been  lynched.  To  lynch  means  to  kill  a  defenseless 
man  at  the  hands  of  a  blood  thirsty  mob.  This  process 
takes  many  forms:  beating  to  death,  stoning,  hanging 
the  victim  to  a  tree  and  even  burning  alive. 

These  lynchings  are  sometimes   perpetrated   on   one 


96        THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

man,  at  other  times  on  a  great  number.  Not  long  ago 
there  was  a  collective  lynching  in  St.  Louis.  It  was 
a  St.  Bartholomew  of  negroes.  Spurred  on  by  an  un- 
justified agitation  against  them,  the  whites  in  a  furious 
mob  sought  the  negro  quarters  to  wipe  out  the  meek 
African  population.  In  the  pitiless  massacre  men, 
women  and  children  fell.  The  white  women,  ladies, 
incited  the  assassins,  and  themselves  used  pins  which 
they  buried  in  the  naked  flesh  of  the  despairing  victims, 
who  made  heroic  efforts  to  defend  themselves.  I  did 
not  witness  this ;  it  occurred  just  before  I  arrived  here, 
but  I  read  about  it  in  their  own  papers  and  magazines 
which  had  no  motive  in  exaggerating  the  facts  of  this 
incident,  but  rather  to  conceal  them. 

Do  not  suppose  that  these  a,re  exceptional  cases; 
they  are  of  a  frequency  that  makes  them  chronic.  In 
Pine  Bluff,  a  small  village  of  Arkansas,  there  was  on 
one  occasion  a  dispute  between  white  and  black  work- 
men. One  fine  day  the  white  workers  placarded  the 
streets  with  posters  bearing  inscriptions  that  could  be 
seen  in  the  full  light  of  the  noonday  sun  by  their  black 
fellow  workers:  "Negroes,  take  care.  We  need  your 
jobs.  We  give  you  two  weeks  to  leave  the  village  or  else 
suffer  the  penalty  of  death/'  The  unhappy  creatures 
had  either  to  obey  or  die. 

In  order  that  you  may  realize  that  the  spirit  of 
this  lynch-law  is  in  the  souls  of  this  people  and  that 
nobody  can  wrench  it  out,  I  will  tell  you  that  in  the 
1903  conferences  at  the  famous  summer  University  of 
Chautauqua,  one,  Mr.  John  Temple  Graves,  of  Atlanta, 
Georgia,  proposed  to  his  audience  the  legalization  of 
lynch-law  in  the  United  States.  "Why  not  make  lynch- 
ing legitimate  by  law?"  he  said.    "Lynching  must  con- 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  97 

tinue  at  all  events ;  why  not  give  legal  authority  to  the 
masses  ?  Why  not  provide  them  with  the  means  of  doing 
instantly  and  legally  what  they  will  do  anyhow  in 
defiance  of  the  law?"  And  in  this  way  the  orator  con- 
tinued to  expound  his  thesis,  himself  an  enthusiastic  ad- 
herent of  the  right  to  lynch. 

Of  course!  As  lynchings  cannot  be  abolished,  the 
only  way  in  which  these  assaults  can  be  saved  from  con- 
stituting an  act  of  anarchy,  and  so  safeguard  the  honor 
of  American  democracy,  is  to  give  the  multitude,  the 
mob,  legal  authority  to  lynch.  What  ?  Judges  appointed 
by  the  people  ?  No,  the  people  themselves  accuser,  judge, 
and  executioner.  Is  not  this  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people? 

The  spectacle  of  lynchings  is  unknown  in  the  other 
countries  of  the  world.  It  is  a  manifestation  of  the 
internal  imperialism  of  the  United  States.  And  the 
imperialism  of  a  democracy  is  the  worst  kind  of  im- 
perialism. The  individual  believes  himself  all  power- 
ful, even  to  break  laws  and  mete  out  justice  to  him- 
self. 

Can  anything  more  cowardly  than  lynching  be  im- 
agined? It  cannot  even  be  compared  with  the  Spanish 
fight  of  the  toreador  with  the  enraged  beast.  To- 
gether we  attended  a  bull  fight  in  Madrid.  Do  you 
remember?  You  almost  fainted.  And  that  horrible 
spectacle  is  the  fight  of  a  man  against  a  furious  animal, 
stronger  than  he.  The  aggressor  runs  all  the  risks 
of  the  struggle  and  often  dies  in  the  contest.  Although 
the  bull-fight  is  cruel  (and  I  rejoice  to  think  that  we 
have  not  accepted  it  from  old  Spain,  our  mother  coun- 
try), the  sacrifice  of  a  lustj^  bull  at  the  hands  of  a 
fighter  whom  he  may  kill  cannot  be  compared  with  the 


98       TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

sacrifice  of  a  defenseless  man  at  the  hands  of  a  furious 
mob  armed  with  stones  and  sticks. 

Further  back  in  history,  in  the  days  of  ancient  Rome, 
another  savage  spectacle  flourished  j  the  contest  of  gladi- 
ators ;  neither  can  this  feature  of  national  cruelty,  which 
has  placed  an  opprobrious  stamp  on  Roman  civilization, 
be  compared  with  the  American  spectacle  of  lynchings. 
In  the  Roman  arena  it  was  a  fight  of  man  to  man,  a 
combat  of  muscles;  in  the  American  public  square  it  is 
an  armed  mob  against  a  defenseless  person.  At  first  the 
gladiators  were  recruited  among  criminals  condemned  to 
death  or  penal  servitude  by  the  laws  of  the  Republic; 
later,  when  there  were  schools  of  gladiators  to  prepare 
professionals,  the  strongest  and  most  valiant  gladiators 
were  admired  as  heroes,  even  to  the  extreme  of  Roman 
ladies  soliciting  their  love.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  Roman 
cruelty,  there  were  in  those  spectacles  traits  of  pity  and 
clemency  unknown  to  American  lynching.  "When  the 
fallen  gladiator  raised  his  finger,  asking  mercy  of  the 
public,  the  latter  often  granted  it  by  waving  their  hand- 
kerchiefs, whereupon  the  victorious  gladiator  had  to 
cease  his  attacks.  There  is  none  of  that  old  clemency 
in  this  modern  martyrology  of  the  United  States,  the 
emulator  of  Rome  in  the  twentieth  century.  Two  thou- 
sand years  of  Christianity  have  not  softened,  but  hard- 
ened the  souls  of  these  modern  republicans. 

This  is  the  discipline  that  inspires  North  American 
character,  and  which  has  taught  it  to  trample  under  foot 
the  weak  nations  of  Latin  America — the  small  republics 
of  Central  America,  Mexico  and  Colombia — and  which 
even  threatened  us  by  bombarding  unjustly  and  treach- 
erously our  ports.  It  is  the  same  spirit;  it  is  lynching 
in  distant  seas. 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  99 

Thank  God,  we  have  no  negroes  in  Chile;  but  many 
South  American  countries  have  a  large  African  popu- 
lation. There  you  will  not  find  the  furious  antagonism 
of  races  existing  here,  and  never  have  I  heard  of  lynch- 
ing in  Brazil  or  Peru.  This  is  an  exclusive  privilege  of 
Anglo-Saxon  America — of  the  country  of  democracy,  of 
liberty  and  of  equality.  If  they  claim  to  set  up  this 
nation  for  us  as  a  model,  it  means  that  we  must  learn 
from  them  this  modern  gladiatorism  which  surpasses  as 
a  spectacle  of  cruelty  everything  that  history  records. 

I  think  and  think,  I  meditate  and  meditate,  I  study 
and  study,  I  compare  and  compare,  and  I  cannot  under- 
stand how  there  are  people  blind  enough  to  advise 
Latin  America  to  look  to  this  country  for  inspiration 
in  her  progress. 


Your  husband  who  adores  you 


Miss  Jones  felt  no  surprise  in  reading  this  letter. 
When  living  in  Spanish  America,  she  had  very  often 
read  in  the  local  papers  descriptions  of  the  lynching  of 
negroes,  together  with  bitter  censure  of  her  country  on 
this  account. 

Miss  Jones  had  studied  this  problem  with  some  in- 
terest, and  had  at  her  disposal  authoritative  sources  of 
information  to  enable  her  to  reply  to  the  scathing  indict- 
ment formulated  by  the  Chicago  correspondent. 

She  was  busy  all  day  long  in  writing  her  comments, 
which  took  definite  shape  in  these  words: 


100      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Madam : 

The  problem  of  the  colored  race  in  our  country  is 
one  of  the  most  serious  we  have  to  face;  but  I  believe 
it  to  be  a  blessing  for  the  negroes,  a  blessing  for  the 
United  States  and  a  blessing  for  humanity  that  it  has 
fallen  to  us  to  face  this  problem.  It  is  a  commonplace 
to  maintain  that  it  would  have  been  better  never  to 
have  brought  negroes  as  slaves  to  the  United  States. 
I  do  not  think  so.  It  has  been  better  for  them  that 
they  came,  as  I  am  going  to  show  you,  and  better  for 
America  and  for  the  world,  because  the  most  trans- 
scendental  problem  for  the  good  understanding  of  the 
races  on  the  earth  is  going  to  be  solved  in  our  country, 
and  the  most  significant  educational  experiment  in  the 
world  is  here  being  made  on  a  scale  without  precedent. 

In  the  days  when  Africans  were  brought  to  our 
coasts  like  beasts  of  burden,  the  slave  trade  was  con- 
sidered lawful  and  moral  all  over  the  world.  They 
were  not  brought  here  as  an  addition  to  our  family  or 
our  nation.  They  were  imported,  literally,  as  if  it 
were  a  matter  of  simple  beasts  of  burden.  It  was  even 
considered  a  crime  to  teach  a  negro  to  read.  That  was 
the  sentiment  of  the  times.  Captain  Hawkins,  one 
of  the  initiators  of  the  slave  traffic,  was  knighted  by 
Queen  Elizabeth  of  England,  and  his  coat  of  arms  had 
for  its  insignia  the  bust  of  a  negro  with  arms  tied. 
In  those  times,  madam,  your  ancestors  were  or  were  soon 
to  be  proprietors  of  negro  slaves. 

In  spite  of  all,  even  in  those  remote  times  in  which 
the  first  negroes  were  imported  to  the  United  States, 
some  chosen  spirits  of  my  country  were  already  opposed 
to  slavery,  considering  it  a  violation  of  human  liberty. 

Only  a  deep  ignorance  of  history,  madam,  and  the 


BLACK  AND  WRITE  "''''' S  :   ;  :  161 

tendency  to  follow  the  philosophy  of  those  who  in- 
terpret history  from  an  exclusively  economical  point 
of  view  can  explain  why  it  has  been  said  that  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  was  a  question  of  bread  and  butter  in 
my  country,  an  economic  struggle  between  the  North 
and  the  South. 

When  the  southern  States  decided  to  make  them- 
selves independent,  their  objective  was  to  perpetuate 
slavery  in  their  territory.  Any  one  who  knows  some- 
thing of  the  history  of  my  country,  must  admit  that  if 
in  the  War  of  Secession  the  South  had  triumphed  and 
we  had  seen  two  republics  established  on  our  soil,  the 
liberation  of  slaves  in  these  same  southern  States,  that 
is  to  say  in  the  new  slave  republic,  would  only  have  been 
a  little  delayed. 

When  interpreting  history,  the  importance  of  the 
economic  factor  cannot  be  denied;  but  they  are  blind, 
madam,  who  do  not  see  in  all  triumphs  of  humanity, 
in  spiritual  triumphs,  the  ascending  pathway  of  sublime 
endeavor,  of  higher  ideals,  which  success  has  scaled. 
I  believe  humanity  has  become  better  and  better  through 
the  centuries  and  the  ages  in  consequence  of  work  done 
by  spirits  highly  gifted  and  inspired  by  the  Christian 
principles  of  love,  justice  and  truth,  and  by  those  who 
have  sacrificed  themselves  in  the  belief  that  it  was  their 
duty  to  pay  to  the  future  the  debt  contracted  with  the 
past.  I  wish  I  were  able  to  show  you,  in  all  its  splendor, 
the  monumental,  grand,  human  staircase  of  effort,  virtue, 
sacrifice,  unselfishness,  and  generosity  which  brought 
freedom  to  the  slaves  in  my  country.  This  is  a  stairway 
with  steps  as  clear  and  well  defined"  as  those  which  lead 
from  the  cellar  to  the  topmost  story  of  the  gigantic  Wool- 
worth  Building  in  New  York;  only  it  is  not  of  iron  or 


102      THE  (luiP  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

cement ;  it  is  of  strong  hearts,  of  tempered  souls  and  of 
superior  spirits.  And  as  the  visitor  to  Woolworth's 
temple  of  commerce  does  not  see  the  marble  steps,  be- 
cause he  takes  the  elevator,  so  also  are  the  steps  of  this 
moral  staircase  invisible  to  the  people  who  have  not 
followed  this  marvelous  history  of  effort  step  by  step, 
but  have  been  carried  to  the  topmost  story  in  the  ele- 
vator of  their  fathers'  achievements. 

In  1619  the  first  negroes  landed  in  Virginia,  and 
shortly  afterwards  slavery  began  to  be  organized  in 
my  country.  Almost  simultaneously,  agitation  against 
this  slavery  began.  The  first  traces  of  the  contest  are 
lost  in  the  past  and  the  anonymous;  they  are  vague, 
undetermined,  without  a  clear  consciousness  of  their 
further  evolution.  The  names  of  these  fighters  are 
not  recorded  by  history,  just  as  it  does  not  tell  the 
name  of  him  who  cast  the  bronze  out  of  which  was  to  be 
fashioned  the  liberty  Bell  in  Philadelphia.  But  let  us 
consider  some  of  these  steps : 

The  first  public  protest  of  a  religious  body  against 
slavery  was  made  in  1688,  in  Pennsylvania,  which  was 
trat  one  of  the  English  colonies.  In  1729  Ralph  Sandi- 
ford  publishes  "The  Mystery  of  Iniquity/'  a  condem- 
nation of  slavery.  In  1737  Benjamin  Lee  publishes  a 
book  in  which  slavery  is  denounced.  From  1746  to 
1767  John  Woolman  travels  in  the  central  and  southern 
colonies  preaching  against  slavery.  In  1750  Anthony 
Benezet  establishes  a  free  school  for  negroes.  In  177G 
Samuel  Hopkins  attacks  slavery  with  pen  and  tongue 
and  succeeds,  in  1774,  in  having  a  law  passed  prohibiting 
the  importation  of  negroes  into  Rhode  Island,  which 
was  followed  by  the  law  of  1784  declaring  free  all 
-children  born  of  slaves  in  that  State.    In  1773  the  doctor 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  103 

and  philanthropist,  Benjamin  Rush,  gives  a  lecture  in 
Philadelphia  against  slavery,  and  in  1774  founds  with 
James  Pemberton  the  first  anti-slavery  society  in  my 
country,  the  secretary  of  which  he  was  for  many  years. 
In  1786  an  analogous  society  is  formed  in  New  Jersey. 
The  same  year  another  is  founded  in  Rhode  Island. 
In  1789  the  society  of  Maryland  is  organized  ' '  to  promote 
the  abolition  of  slavery  and  to  better  the  conditions  of 
the  negroes/'  In  1790  the  pro-abolition  society  of  Con- 
necticut is  founded;  in  the  following  year  an  analogous 
society  in  Virginia;  and  thus  successively  until  all  the 
States  could  boast  of  a  society  of  this  character.  In 
1794  the  first  convention  of  pro-abolition  societies  takes 
place.  In  the  convention  of  these  societies  at  Baltimore 
in  1826  there  were  already  one  hundred  and  fifty  so- 
cieties that  gave  an  account  of  their  efforts  against 
slavery,  six  of  them  from  the  southern  States.  In  1831 
the  publication  of  "The  Liberator"  begins  in  Boston. 
In  1851  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  by  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  appears,  a  book  that  shook  the  conscience  of  the 
country,  so  human  that  even  to  this  day  it  is  read  with 
profound  interest  and  is  produced  on  the  stage  and  on 
the  screen.  In  1863  the  President  of  the  United  States 
proclaims  the  emancipation  of  the  negroes. 

I  have  noted,  madam,  only  some  of  the  most  salient 
points  in  this  struggle  for  the  liberation  of  the  negroes, 
but  I  think  they  will  suffice  to  prove  to  you  that  it  is 
absurd  to  suppose  that  the  emancipation  of  the  negroes 
was  a  question  of  bread  and  butter  in  my  country.  It 
would  be  equally  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  present 
fight  for  prohibition  and  female  suffrage  is  also  a  matter 
purely  economical ;  and  these  campaigns  of  to-day  are 
following  the  same  road  over  which  the  pro-abolition 


104      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

campaign  traveled.  Abolition  is  to-day  a  historical  word, 
as  prohibition  and  suffrage  will  be  to-morrow,  white 
flags  which  have  been  left  behind  at  places  already 
passed  in  the  Avenue  of  Progress.  It  is  evident  that  in 
these  struggles  the  detainers  of  privileges  defend  them- 
selves, their  money  and  their  economic  position,  but 
the  forces  struggling  for  the  common  progress  and  hap- 
piness do  not  and  never  have  pursued  the  selfish  purpose 
of  a  personal  monetary  interest. 

In  my  moments  of  dejection,  madam,  (who  does  not 
have  them?),  when  I  am  disheartened  to  see  the  delay 
in  attaining  a  social  triumph  for  my  country,  I  usually 
give  new  life  to  my  troubled  spirit  by  reading  of  those 
struggles  of  the  past  which  call  to  memory  the  ups 
and  downs  of  furious  battles,  resulting  in  the  ultimate 
victories  of  yesterday.  And  this  struggle  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  slaves  in  my  country  is  for  me  one  of  the 
most  worthy  of  emulation.  I  read  the  very  books  of 
that  period  and  my  soul  travels  towards  the  past, 
I  attend,  for  example,  the  martyrdom  of  Captain  John 
Brown  and  listen  to  the  speeches  of  Thoreau  before 
and  after  the  decapitation  of  the  martyr  in  Concord, 
Mass.,  in  1859  and  1869;  I  associate  myself  with  the 
life  of  Gerrit  Smith,  Astor's  cousin,  a  millionaire  who 
distributes  gratuitously  lots  of  land  among  the  negroes, 
for  whom  he  is  founding  schools;  I  hear  the  speeches 
and  I  follow  the  life  of  Wendell  Phillips,  whose  name 
a  high  school  in  Chicago  bears,  which  to-day  among  its 
seventeen  hundred  pupils  counts  three  hundred  and 
fifty  negroes.  This  whole  struggle  of  the  past  with  its 
epic  characters  gives  me  strength  for  the  struggles  of 
to-day  and  prepares  me  for  the  struggles  of  to-morrow. 

Therefore,  madam,  I  take  the  liberty  of  saying  that 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  105 

only  a  profot^d  ignorance  of  history  can  make  your 
husband  believe  that  in  the  struggle  for  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  slaves  of  my  country  only  economical  interests 
have  been  involved.  He  also  maintains  that  the  negro 
would  be  much  better  off  as  a  slave  than  under  present 
conditions.  Let  us  see.  Your  husband  says,  madam, 
that  it  has  been  a  curse  for  the  negro  to  have  come  here. 
First,  he  was  a  despised  slave;  his  subsequent  liberty 
•has  profited  him  nothing,  and  he  would  be  better  off  in 
his  former  state  of  slavery  or  perhaps  in  his  primitive 
home  in  dark  Africa.  A  more  unfounded  affirmation 
could  not  be  made.  I  am  sure  that  if  all  the  negroes  of 
my  country  were  offered  the  opportunity  of  returning 
permanently,  with  passage  paid  by  our  government,  to 
the  negro  Republic  of  Liberia  or  the  negro  Empire  of 
Abyssinia,  there  would  not  be  among  their  millions 
enough  to  fill  the  first-class  staterooms  of  a  transatlantic 
steamer. 

My  country  is  called  the  melting  pot  of  the  world, 
the  crucible  in  which  all  nationalities  on  the  face  of 
the  globe  are  fused  into  a  new  race.  The  ruling  ethnical 
element  in  this  new  nation,  that  has  in  store  so  many 
surprises  for  humanity,  is  European.  Not  with  the  in- 
tention of  increasing  our  population,  but  simply  of 
bringing  human  machines,  we  imported  from  Africa 
cargoes  of  negroes  under  conditions  which  your  hus- 
band has  described  to  you.  We  brought  over  slaves 
whom  we  hunted  in  a  savage  continent.  You  have  al- 
ready seen  how  these  slaves  were  emancipated  and  be- 
came citizens  of  our  republic.  That  is  to  say,  the  melting 
pot  was  not  only  composed  of  all  nationalities  of  the 
Old  "World,  but  even  Africa  came  to  America ;  and  you 


106      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

may  compare  the  African  whom  we  received  with  the 
Anacahifs  and  Onas  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  a  savage. 

Since  the  arrival  of  the  negro  on  our  shores  we  have 
commenced,  first  on  a  small  scale,  later,  with  his  emanci- 
pation, on  a  larger  scale,  the  monumental  task  of  educat- 
ing the  African  on  our  soil.  It  is  a  gigantic  missionary 
task,  the  most  gigantic  missionary  enterprise  ever  under- 
taken in  the  world.  Not  that  we  could  not  have  sent  the 
negroes  away,  but  that  we  did  not  want  to  do  so.  Many 
have  wished  it  on  different  occasions,  but  the  moral 
forces  of  the  country  have  prevented  it.  You  can  see 
with  what  rapidity  and  ease  we  are  sending  millions  of 
Americans  to  Europe  and  at  the  same  time  ammunitions 
and  food  in  spite  of  all  obstacles  and  submarines.  The 
negro  has  come  to  our  country  to  remain  here,  and  he 
is  protected  in  our  country  by  the  shield  of  American 
citizenship. 

Centuries  of  difference  in  evolution  separated  us  will- 
ing European  colonizers  from  the  unwilling  African 
colonizers.  "We  understood  that  it  was  necessary  to 
fill  these  centuries  by  means  of  education.  It  is  not  a 
simple  task,  madam,  to  educate  millions  of  ex-slaves,  ex- 
savages.  You  know  how  in  your  own  country  educa- 
tion is  still  confined  to  a  small  privileged  group.  But  it 
is  edifying  to  see  what  has  been  done  in  fifty  years. 
Let  us  compare  conditions  of  the  negroes  since  1866,  im- 
mediately after  the  triumph  of  the  Civil  War  which 
gave  them  their  liberty,  up  to  1916.  Of  course,  the 
previous  period,  since  the  arrival  of  the  first  slaves  till 
the  time  of  the  emancipation,  marks  a  lengthy  period  of 
preparation  of  the  race. 

In  1866  only  ten  per  cent  of  the  negroes  could  read; 
in  1916  more  than  sixty-five  per  cent  could  read.     In 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  107 

1866  there  were  one  hundred  thousand  negro  children 
attending  public  schools ;  in  1916  there  were  one  million 
six  hundred  and  thirty-six  thousand.  In  1866  seven  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  were  spent  for  the  education  of 
the  negroes ;  in  1916  fourteen  million  six  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  were  spent.  Institutions  of  public  high 
school  education  for  negroes  represent  a  value  of  twenty- 
one  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  Indus- 
trial and  Normal  Institute  of  Tuskegee  alone,  founded  in 
1881  by  Booker  T.  Washington,  with  the  constant  and 
very  valuable  help  of  the  whites,  which  he  has  grate- 
fully acknowledged  in  his  books,  contains  one  hundred 
and  three  edifices. 

The  negro  population  of  the  United  States  has  only 
twenty-five  per  cent  of  illiterates,  less  than  any  South 
American  republic.  Your  country  has  more  than  twice 
that  proportion  of  illiterates  and  other  countries  have 
an  even  greater  proportion.  I  have  told  you  that  there 
are  one  million  six  hundred  and  thirty-six  thousand 
negro  students  in  our  educational  institutes.  Your  coun- 
try, with  a  population  equal  to  half  that  of  the  negro 
community  in  the  United  States,  has  only  a  little  more 
than  four  hundred  thousand  students  in  its  different 
educational  institutes;  and  your  country  is  one  of  the 
most  advanced  of  Latin  America.  To  arrive  at  a  figure 
of  one  million  six  hundred  thousand  negro  pupils,  we 
have  to  take  the  aggregate  for  several  Latin  American 
countries,  according  to  the  most  recent  statistics.  Brazil, 
Chile,  Uruguay,  Peru,  Venezuela,  Bolivia  and  Paraguay 
united  send  the  same  number  of  children  to  their  schools 
as  does  the  negro  population  of  my  country,  who  num- 
ber twelve  millions  while  the  population  of  these  seven 
republics  reaches  forty-one  millions.   Speaking  of  higher 


108      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

education,  I  can  tell  you  that  there  are  more  profes- 
sional men  and  authors  among  the  negroes  of  the  United 
States  than  in  any  Latin  American  country. 

So  much  for  the  educational  success  of  the  negroes 
in  my  country.  As  regards  their  economic  triumph, 
it  will  suffice  to  consider  that  our  negroes  possess  to-day 
property  valued  at  one  billion  dollars.  It  would  be 
interesting  for  your  husband  to  read  books  like  one 
of  Booker  T.  Washington's,  "The  Negro  in  Business/ ' 
which  would  show  him  whether  the  negro's  present  con- 
dition is  better  than  his  former  slave  condition.  There 
are  black  millionaires,  madam.  The  negro  woman, 
Sarah  Eector,  earns  six  hundred  dollars  a  day,  far  more, 
certainly,  than  does  our  President  and  more  than  all  the 
Presidents  of  all  the  South  American  countries  put 
together. 

Neither  are  the  doors  to  the  highest  honors  in  my 
country  closed  to  the  negro.  To  convince  you  of  this 
I  will  cite  the  case  of  the  negro  Bruce,  born  a  slave, 
who  became  a  senator,  an  honor  that  the  negro  race 
enjoyed  for  the  first  time  when  Hiram  R.  Revels,  a 
negro,  was  elected  a  senator  in  1870.  On  the  other 
hand,  very  many  negroes  have  been  and  are  members  of 
the  legislatures  of  several  States.  More  than  twenty 
have  been  elected  representatives  to  the  Federal  Con- 
gress. 

No  doubt,  madam,  the  lynching  of  negroes,  unfor- 
tunately so  frequent  in  my  country,  has  no  possible 
justification.  Nevertheless,  your  husband  exaggerates 
when  he  says  that  every  day  the  newspapers  tell  of  the 
lynching  of  a  negro  as  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world.  At  all  events,  these  are  quite  frequent  and  con- 
stitute a  disgrace  for  us  which  I  cannot  fail  to  recognize. 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  109 

But  in  this  as  in  every  other  case,  when  a  custom  is 
under  observation  it  is  necessary  to  imagine  a  curve 
drawn  through  time  in  order  to  see  whether  the  trend 
is  for  the  custom  to  be  intensified  or  to  fall  into  disuse. 
Since  1885  statistics  of  lynchings  have  been  made  in 
my  country,  and  they  show  that  this  shameful  practice 
is  diminishing  with  time.  Let  us  take  the  statistics 
for  the  thirty  years  from  1885  until  1915  and  we  dis- 
cover : 

From  1885  to  1894  there  were  1726  lynchings. 
From  1895  to  1904  there  were  1239  lynchings. 
From  1905  to  1914  there  were  701  lynchings. 
These  figures  include  the  lynching  of  both  negroes 
and  white  men. 

Lynching  is  always  the  result  of  a  movement  of  in- 
dignation to  punish  a  misdeed,  the  multitude  fearing 
that  ordinary  justice  will  be  trifling  or  tardy.  It  is  a 
collective  act  governed  by  the  principles  of  the  psy- 
chology of  the  multitude,  in  which  the  individual  loses 
completely  his  individuality  and  in  a  large  degree  his 
responsibility.  The  motive  power  for  an  act  of  this 
nature,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  feeling  of  indignation  and  a 
desire  to  punish  a  delinquent  who  has  offended  society. 
Then,  the  multitude  follows  its  first  impulses,  blinded  by 
contagion.  Many  acts  of  collective  heroism  are  acts  of 
contagion,  inspired  by  the  gestures  of  a  leader.  In 
the  same  way,  many  acts  of  collective  cruelty  have  the 
same  cause.  An  act  of  justice  imposed  by  the  multitude 
was  to  throw  into  Boston  harbor  the  cargoes  of  tea  as  a 
protest  against  the  unjust  taxes  that  the  mother  country 
wished  to  impose  on  the  colonies. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  republic,  when  we  made  the 
conquest  of  the  South  and  the  West,  it  happened  that 


110      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

men  established  themselves  there  and  began  to  control 
nature's  forces  without  first  establishing  the  majesty  of 
the  law  with  all  its  necessary  formalities.  Almost  with- 
out judges,  each  one  had  to  mete  out  justice  by  him- 
self. Lynching  originated  as  a  punishment  for  the 
crime  of  assault  on  a  white  woman's  honor  committed 
with  violence  by  a  negro.  The  public,  indignant  at  the 
horror  of  this  crime,  had  not  sufficient  control  over  itself 
to  await  the  slow  action  of  justice.  The  fact  that  this 
has  been  the  principal  cause  of  lynchings  is  responsible 
for  the  absence  of  a  reaction  strong  enough  to  put  an 
end  once  and  for  all  to  these  irritating  spectacles.  But 
I  must  stop  this  discussion  of  lynching  lest  you  may 
come  to  think  that  I  favor  the  practice.  I  condemn  it, 
madam,  most  emphatically,  just  as  my  whole  country 
condemns  it,  with  a  few  exceptions. 

Here  is  another  point  regarding  which  your  husband 
does  not  do  us  justice :  He  says  that  we  do  not  protest 
against  these  lynchings.  A  powerful  movement  is  work- 
ing throughout  the  country  against  the  practice  of  lynch- 
law.  I  take  at  random  from  a  daily  paper  this  notice : 
"The  directorate  of  The  San  Antonio  Express  has  estab- 
lished a  fund  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  combat 
and  punish  those  guilty  of  lynching.  Out  of  this  fund 
will  be  paid  five  hundred  dollars  for  the  arrest  and 
conviction  of  any  person  who  has  taken  part  in  the 
lynching  of  a  white  man  and  one  thousand  dollars  in 
the  case  of  the  victim  being  a  negro." 

There  is  an  essential  difference  between  the  way  in 
which  we  regard  these  acts  and  how  we  proceed  to 
discountenance  them,  as  compared  with  the  acceptation 
of  the  spectacle  of  bull-fights  in  Spain  and  the  ancient 
gladiatorial  combats  of  Rome.     In   Madrid   the  King 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  111 

attends  the  bull-fights.  Charles  V  himself  dispatched 
a  bull  on  the  occasion  of  a  corrida  held  to  celebrate 
the  birth  of  his  son,  Philip  II.  It  is  certain  that  noth- 
ing short  of  a  revolution  would  break  out  in  Spain 
if  it  were  proposed  to  abolish  bull-fighting  by  law. 
Even  though  Spain  is  such  a  Catholic  country,  the  very 
Popes  who  attempted  to  stop  the  sport  failed  to  do 
so.  In  Rome  the  nobles  maintained  numerous  glad- 
iators, always  ready  to  engage  in  mortal  combat.  The 
custom  was  applauded  in  Rome  even  by  thinkers  of 
the  greatest  renown.  Both  Cicero  and  Pliny  the  young- 
er defended  this  practice,  extolling  it  as  a  means  of 
combating  the  fear  of  death. 

To  do  ourselves  full  justice  we  must  also  remember 
all  we  are  doing  for  the  good  of  the  African  race.  I  cite 
for  instance  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  whites  who 
have  aided  the  negro  race  in  its  career  of  betterment, 
and  also  the  whites  who  died  in  our  Civil  War  fighting  to 
free  the  negroes,  not  forgetting  those  others  who  have 
exposed  their  life  in  peace-time  to  save  a  negro  in  danger. 
You  know  that  there  is  a  Carnegie  Institution  which 
rewards  acts  of  heroism.  Between  1905  and  1912  this 
Institute  has  distinguished  twenty-eight  white  men  and 
women,  awarding  them  or  their  heirs  prizes  of  medals  or 
money  for  acts  of  heroism  while  trying  to  save  negroes 
in  danger,  often  at  the  cost  of  their  own  life. 

Even  the  dark  clouds  have  their  silver  lining,  madam. 
The  negro  has  been  paying  a  contribution  in  blood  for 
the  right  to  pass  from  a  state  of  slavery  to  that  of 
civilized  man.  But  in. my  country,  more  white  blood 
has  been  shed  for  the  negroes  than  black  for  the  whites. 

It  is  true,  madam,  that  in  my  country  there  is  no 
racial  mingling  between  negroes  and  whites,  since  we 


112      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

do  not  desire  this  approximation.  There  is  a  race  antag- 
onism between  us,  which  we  do  not  feel  towards  any 
European  race,  but  which  prevails  only  against  Asia  and 
[Africa.  These  are  races  so  different  from  ours  that 
many  suppose,  for  reasons  apparently  well  founded,  that 
there  is  no  advantage  to  be  gained  by  amalgamation 
with  them.  Nevertheless,  of  all  the  states  in  the  Union, 
only  twenty-nine  have  laws  that  consider  marriage  be- 
tween whites  and  blacks  illegal.  Even  less  in  number 
are  the  states  in  which  the  law  prohibits  negroes  and 
whites  to  attend  the  same  schools,  to  travel  in  the  same 
cars,  to  occupy  without  distinction  the  same  seats  in 
theaters  and  public  libraries,  or  to  be  buried  in  the  same 
cemeteries. 

In  order  to  understand  the  spirit  guiding  the  south- 
ern states  in  which  existnig  laws  separate  whites  from 
blacks,  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  African 
was  a  slave  there  until  only  a  little  more  than  fifty  years 
ago.  Withal  the  negro  is  gaining  socially  in  proportion 
as  his  education  advances.  Not  even  in  the  southern 
states  can  the  condition  of  the  negroes  be  compared 
with  that  of  peoples  subjected  to  the  yoke  of  European 
nations,  such  as  Poles,  Jews  and  Armenians. 

My  country  believes  in  educating  the  negroes,  as  it 
believes  in  educating  the  Esquimaux,  the  whites,  or  the 
Philippine  Islanders;  and  this  negro  problem  is  one 
only  of  education,  in  which  I  believe  we  have  passed 
the  period  of  laboratory  experiments.  It  has  already 
been  proven  that  the  African  is  just  as  susceptible  of  be- 
ing educated  as  any  other  race. 

Unquestionably,  it  would  be  absurd  to  raise  the  negro 
immediately  to  the  highest  activities  of  abstract  thought. 
Nor  can  it  be  expected  that  the  negroes  will  be  able 


BLACK  AND  WHITE  US 

within  a  generation  or  two  to  place  themselves  on  the 
same  level  as  the  whites,  who  have  enjoyed  thousands  of 
years  of  civilization.  In  my  opinion  the  Normal  and 
Industrial  Institute  of  Tuskegee  has  solved,  in  the  most 
intelligent  way,  the  problem  of  educating  the  negro,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  has  taught  the  world  how  the  white, 
yellow,  red  and  all  other  races  should  be  educated.  An 
integral  education — industrial,  intellectual  and  human 
at  the  same  time — it  teaches  how  to  do,  to  understand 
and  to  feel;  it  prepares  the  hand,  the  brain  and  the 
heart.  Before  long  the  country  will  see  widespread  the 
results  attained  by  this  school. 

That  the  negro  has  developed  wonderfully  through 
contact  with  the  white  is  shown  in  a  manner  which 
carries  good  augury  for  the  future,  by  the  fact  that 
large  numbers  of  negroes  have  distinguished  themselves 
in  all  human  activities,  in  science,  literature,  painting, 
finance,  war  and  agriculture.  Let  it  suffice  to  mention 
the  names  of  Booker  T.  Washington  and  Robert  William 
Stanley,  famous  negro  educators;  Paul  Lawrence  Dun- 
bar and  William  Stanley  Braithwaite,  poets  of  great 
renown;  W.  E.  Gurghardt  du  Bois,  writer;  Henry  0. 
Tanner,  painter;  Harry  T.  Burleigh,  musician  and  com- 
poser, and  May  Howard  Jackson,  sculptress. 

To  prove  to  you  the  sympathy  of  the  whites  and  their 
desire  to  aid  negroes  who  distinguish  themselves,  let 
us  recall  that  back  in  the  days  of  the  beginning  of  slav- 
ery in  1761,  a  little  negro  girl  born  in  Africa,  in  Senegal, 
was  bought  in  America  by  Mrs.  Susannah  Wheatley  and 
was  treated  in  her  home  so  kindly  that  Mrs.  Wheatley 's 
daughter  taught  her  to  read  and  helped  her  with  her 
books  and  studies,  placing  in  her  hands  not  only  the 
Bible,  but  even  the  Latin  classics.     The  slave  showed 


114      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

such  disposition  for  learning  that  her  masters  encouraged 
her  aptitudes,  gave  her  her  liberty  and  came  to  look 
upon  her  as  a  member  of  the  family.  She  was  even 
taken  to  England  on  a  special  voyage  for  the  benefit  of 
her  health.  She  became  the  first  negro  poetess  of  re- 
nown, Phyllis  "Wheatley,  hailed  as  the  laureate  of  Bos- 
ton. This  has  constantly  been  the  attitude  of  the  whites 
towards  a  negro  who  has  distinguished  himself. 

Weighing  all  this  in  the  scales  of  justice,  I  firmly  be- 
lieve that  my  country  will  be  shown  to  have  done  more 
for  this  negro  race  formerly  brought  here  to  slavery, 
than  any  other  country  would  have  done  under  the  same 
circumstances.  It  positively  is  doing  more  for  them  than 
any  republic  of  Central  or  South  America  or  any  of 
their  own  countries,  governed  by  their  own  race,  like 
Abyssinia  or  Liberia  are  doing  for  their  own  negroes. 

The  newspapers  of  Latin  America,  madam,  never  miss 
an  opportunity  to  publish  details  of  lynchings,  but  very 
seldom  can  they  find  space  for  impartial  records  of  our 
labors  to  uplift  the  African  element  in  our  midst.  Simi- 
larly, our  newspapers  are  too  prone  to  print  in  full  the 
news  or  revolutions,  changes  of  government,  and  earth- 
quakes in  Latin  America,  while  neglecting  to  chronicle 
items  referring  to  the  struggle  of  those  countries  for 
progress.  This  divorces  and  separates  us.  Pardon  me, 
therefore,  for  having  added  these  notes  to  your  hus- 
band's letter;  otherwise  you  would  have  formed  a  mis- 
taken and  unjust  opinion. 

A  Friend  from  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER   VI 
woman's  suffrage 

AFTER  duly  mailing  the  letter  on  the  negro  prob- 
lem in  the  United  States,  Miss  Jones  was  left 
anxiously  waiting  for  the  next  communication 
from  the  Chicago  correspondent.  She  wondered  what 
subject  he  would  choose  now  to  write  about  to  his  wife. 
Her  curiosity  was  satisfied  before  two  weeks  had  gone 
by.  The  correspondent  had  selected  a  theme  for  each  of 
kis  long  letters  with  the  orderly  method  of  one  who  is 
writing  a  book.  This  time  he  spoke  of  Woman's  Suf- 
frage, as  follows: 

Chicago,   1918. 

My  dearest: 


Just  fancy  yourself  putting  on  your  hat  some  fine  day 
and  going  out  "to  perform  your  civic  duties"  as  a  voter 
for  such  and  such  a  candidate  in  an  election  of  Senators 
or  Representatives.  Can  you  imagine  anything  more 
ridiculous  than  a  woman  going  to  the  polls  to  vote? 
But  this  is  nothing ;  just  imagine  yourself  seated  in  the 
Senate  or  House  of  Representatives  proposing  a  Bill  for 
the  taxation  of  saltpetre  or  copper  exports,  or  else — be- 
cause woman  suffrage  in  the  United  States  is  coming 
to  this — elected  as  a  judge  and,  sentencing  to  death  a 

115 


ill6      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

criminal  for  having  murdered  a  man  on  the  high-road. 

The  intervention  of  woman  in  polities  would  mean 
her  moral  degeneration ;  politics  are  dirty,  and  we  should 
keep  our  women  undefiled. 

Here  are  some  paragraphs  cut  at  random  from  the 
newspapers  I  read.  If  I  am  always  able  to  give  cor- 
rect references,  with  names  and  figures,  to  things  and 
cases  here,  it  is  because  I  have  made  it  a  habit  to  cut 
out  from  the  newspapers  and  keep  in  my  portfolio  any 
items  which  attract  my  attention.  One  reads:  "Miss 
Katheryn  Sellers  has  been  appointed  judge  of  the 
Juvenile  Court  in  "Washington.  This  is  the  first  time 
that  a  woman  has  been  appointed  a  judge  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia."  "Miss  Jeannette  Kankin,  member 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  has  been  nominated 
by  the  State  of  Montana  as  a  candidate  for  Senator  in 
the  Federal  Congress."  "Miss  Hay,  president  of  a  com- 
mittee in  the  Convention  of  the  Republican  Party,  read 
before  the  members  the  new  program  of  the  party." 
And  so  on  in  this  wise. 

The  modern  American  feminism  means  the  evasion 
of  woman  from  the  home  and  her  invasion  of  the  realm 
which  has  been  exclusively  for  man  since  the  beginning 
of  the  world;  and  this  kind  of  feminism  is  gaining 
ground  here  at  the  rate  of  geometrical  progression.  It 
is  winning  over  the  most  representative  men  as  fast  as 
an  epidemic  gains  ground  in  a  Chinese  quarter.  Until 
a  short  time  ago  President  Wilson  was  passive,  if  not 
opposed  to  woman  suffrage.  In  his  latest  book,  "The 
New  Liberty,"  he  does  not  even  refer  to  women's  claim 
to  intervene  in  the  electoral  contests;  but  now  we  see 
him  sending  personal  letters  to  the  Senators,  asking  them 
to  vote  in  favor  of  a  Federal  law  giving  to  women  the 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  117 

right  of  voting.  His  letter  to  Senator  Shields  of  Ten- 
nessee, which  has  been  widely  published,  is  the  most 
significant  propaganda  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage.  Of 
course,  Eoosevelt  is  also  another  ardent  adherent.*  "Wom- 
an's suffrage  has  already  conquered  the  most  represent- 
ative men  of  the  country. 

At  present  there  are  eleven  States  besides  the  Terri- 
tory of  Alaska  in  which  women  have  exactly  the  same 
electoral  rights  as  men.  The  first  of  those  States  to 
win  the  political  liberty  of  women  was  "Wyoming.  This 
was  in  1869,  the  year  in  which  I  was  born  j  one  of  the 
last  was  Nevada,  which  made  this  conquest  in  1914,  and 
recently  New  York  has  had  this  triumph. 

To-day  more  than  three  million  six  hundred  thousand 
women  may  vote  in  the  United  States  to  elect  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic.  A  glance  at  the  feminist  map  of 
the  country  shows  that  this  is  principally  a  conquest  of 
the  West,  of  that  part  of  the  Republic  where  virgin  land 
has  been  colonized  in  freedom  from  any  of  the  restric- 
tions that  Old  Europe  has  imposed  on  the  East.  It  seems 
to  me  unquestionable  that  before  long,  possibly  while  I 
am  here,  a  law  will  be  passed,  giving,  in  all  States,  the 
same  electoral  rights  to  women  as  to  men.  WTien  this  bill 
was  presented  to  Congress  in  1914  it  obtained  in  the 
Senate  a  majority  of  votes,  but  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives it  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  two  hundred  and 
four  against  one  hundred  and  seventy-four.  To-day 
this  same  bill  that  amends  the  Constitution  has  been  ap- 
proved by  a  large  majority  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. Investigations  made  a  priori  by*  the  suffragettes 
show  that  in  the  Senate  it  has  a  large  majority,  but  not 

*  Roosevelt  was  still  alive  when  this  letter  is  supposed  to  have 
been  written. 


118      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

the  two-thirds  needful.  Of  the  candidates  to  the  Sen- 
ate for  the  next  election,  thirty-two  have  declared  them- 
selves in  favor  of  woman  suffrage.  At  present  there  is 
heing  carried  on  in  the  newspapers,  on  platforms,  in  the 
magazines  and  at  meetings  a  most  forceful  campaign  in 
favor  of  the  law.  Women  are  constantly  going  to  jail 
for  breaking  the  law  in  their  fights  for  suffrage.  To- 
day all  political  parties  have  added  to  their  platforms 
the  proposal  to  extend  to  women  all  the  political  rights 
of  men. 

The  foregoing  will  surprise  you,  although  we  read  to- 
gether in  Chile  much  about  Yankee  woman  suffrage, 
and  though  once  we  were  highly  amused  when  a  cable 
brought  the  news  that  a  woman  fainted  in  Congress 
on  voting  for  the  declaration  of  war  against  Germany. 
However,  you  need  not  be  astonished  at  this.  Reserve 
ypur  amazement  for  the  day  when  we  shall  see  a  woman 
President  of  the  Supreme  Court  or  President  of  the 
Republic. 

I  have  no  fears  of  this  Yankee  extravagance  extend- 
ing its  contagion  to  us,  although  we  have  lately  been 
assimilating  everything  which  comes  from  this  .country. 
To  pass  a  law  for  woman  suffrage  among  us  would  sim- 
ply mean  doubling  the  value  of  the  men 's  vote.  Where 
is  the  wife  in  our  countries  who  would  vote  in  opposi- 
tion to  her  husband !  Or  if  she  is  a  spinster,  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  vote  of  her  father?  Here,  in  the  United 
States  where  the  home  does  not  exist,  where  every  mem- 
ber of  a  family  professes  a  different  religion  and  has  a 
different  conception  of  life,  it  is  easily  understood  how 
the  husband  may  be  a  republican  and  his  several  wives — 
the  present  one  and  those  he  has  divorced— may  be  demo- 
crats or  socialists. 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  119 

In  our  country  woman  is  such  an  integral  part  of  the 
home  that  she  is  logically  always  of  the  same  opinion  as 
her  father  or  her  husband.  The  same  is  true  in  Ger- 
many and  Japan  and  France  and  Italy.  Woman  suf- 
frage signifies  the  dissolution,  the  breaking  up  of  the 
home.  The  case  has  been  cited  here  of  a  woman  whose 
husband  was  a  candidate  for  the  House  of  Eepresenta- 
tives  and  who  not  only  did  not  vote  for  him,  but  even 
delivered  speeches  in  public  in  favor  of  the  candidate 
opposing  her  own  husband.  They  were  not  divorced 
and  even  maintained  that  they  loved  each  other,  but  in 
questions  of  ideas  and  politics  they  were  of  different 
opinions.  This  is  a  typical  feature  of  Yankee  psychol- 
ogy. 

Unquestionably  our  women  are  more  sensible  than 
Yankee  women.  I  am  sure  that  they  would  not  accept 
the  right  to  vote  even  if  it  were  offered  them  by  Con- 
gress on  a  silver  tray.  Because  they  are  women.  Here 
there  are  three  sexes.  The  American  suffragist  consti- 
tutes very  definitely  a  completely  new  sex  that  is  making  N 
its  appearance  for  the  first  time  in  history.  It  is  neither 
woman  nor  man. 

It  has  always  been  one  of  the  typical  characteristics 
of  woman  to  belong  to  the  home  as  the  oyster  to  the  shell. 
The  oyster  dies  when  taken  out  of  its  shell ;  in  the  same 
way  woman  out  of  the  home  surely  dies.  What  con- 
tinues to  live  is  not  a  woman,  it  is  a  neuter  being.  It  is 
an  attribute  of  woman  to  busy  herself  in  beautifying 
and  making  the  home  of  the  family  attractive,  in  cooking 
and  in  the  bringing  up  of  the  children,  while  she  leaves 
to  man,  whom  God  made  strong,  the  duty  of  earning 
what  is  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  the  home. 
Woman  always  leans  on  man. 


120      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

This  new  sexual  American  type,  this  new  genus,  which 
is  neither  feminine  nor  masculine,  takes  as  much  care  of 
its  home  as  the  hen  does  of  the  shell  out  of  which  its 
mother  hatched  it.  Generally  speaking,  the  American 
woman  only  sleeps  in  her  house.  For  meals  there  are 
restaurants  of  every  imaginable  type,  from  the  most 
sumptuous,  in  which  nearly  every  one  seated  at  a  table 
has  his  own  waiter  (I  am  told,  but  I  cannot  believe  it, 
that  in  New  York  there  is  a  restaurant  where  they  em- 
ploy as  waiters  only  ruined  European  counts  and  mar- 
quises) to  the  restaurant  in  which  every  one  goes  to  the 
kitchen,  which  is  in  full  view  (cafeteria),  to  serve  him- 
self, and  to  the  automatic  restaurant  where  on  inserting 
a  coin  in  a  slot  a  couple  of  fried  eggs  appear  or  a  stream 
of  coffee.  When  cooked  dishes  can  be  obtained  auto- 
matically, why  make  them  at  home?  Are  we  not  for- 
sooth jn  the  twentieth  century  ? 

Moreover,  when  the  cooking  is  done  at  home,  as  a 
rare  exception,  do  you  think  there  is  any  house  in  the 
United  States  where  it  takes  three  or  four  hours  to  cook 
a  meal  as  in  our  country?  No.  Everything  comes 
ready  made  in  cans,  even  soup,  and  besides,  all  kinds  of 
cooked  dishes  may  be  bought  at  the  Delicatessen  Stores. 
Not  long  ago  I  saw  in  a  newspaper  of  Chicago,  The  Post, 
a  funny  story  in  four  cartoons.  In  the  first  the  hus- 
band asks  his  wife  for  his  dinner.  In  the  second  the 
husband  starts  to  read  the  newspaper  while  waiting  for 
the  meal  which  his  wife  has  not  yet  begun.  The  gentle- 
man has  not  read  the  first  title  of  the  first  news  article 
when  his  wife  tells  him  that  dinner  is  ready. 

The  husband  goes  into  the  dining-room  but  sees  no 
food  on  the  table.     "What  do  you  mean  by  saying  that 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  121 

dinner  is  ready?"  her  husband  asks  her.  "There  is 
only  one  thing  lacking/ '  his  wife  replied.  "What?" 
" The  can-opener." 

The  menu  was:  Canned  soup,  stuffed  bottled  olives, 
beans  cooked  in  cans  and  so  on.  This  story  has  for  us  a 
humorous  meaning  very  different  to  that  which  Ameri- 
cans see  in  it.  For  us  the  joke  is  that  the  meal  is  en- 
tirely composed  of  canned  food ;  for  the  American  it  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  since  the  can-opener  was  lack- 
ing, in  reality  everything  was  lacking;  Just  as  if  we 
should  speak  of  a  woman  about  to  be  married,  who  has 
everything  needful  except  a  husband.  At  least  this  is 
how  I  understand  it.  The  soldier  is  characterized  by  his 
rifle,  the  painter  by  his  brush,  and  the  housekeeper  of 
an  American  house  by  her  can-opener. 

In  an  article  published  in  a  magazine  under  the  title 
"Why  Women  Do  Not  Marry,"  the  author,  a  woman, 
says  that  this  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  women 
have  learned  to  take  care  of  themselves,  but  also  adds, 
with  much  emphasis,  that  it  is  because  men  are  not  mod- 
ern, but  "out  of  date/'  antiquated  and  have  been  asleep 
for  two  or  three  generations,  and  because  many  things 
have  happened  in  the  world  of  which  they  are  entirely 
ignorant. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  National  American  Association  of 
Woman  Suffrage,  which  took  place  in  Philadelphia,  one 
of  the  leaders  of  the  movement  said :  ' '  Ought  we  women 
to  leave  the  laws  of  the  country  exclusively  in  the  hands 
of  men,  who  after  the  day's  work  return  home  tired  and 
incapable  of  considering  the  serious  aspects  of  life  ? ' ' 

Oh!  The  speeches  of  these  suffragettes  are  enough 
to  make  one  roar  with  laughing.    All  this  would  be  a 


122      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

simple  question  of  vaudeville  if  it  were  not  that  it  is 
taken  quite  seriously  here  and  that  men  say  amen  to 
everything  they  propose.  At  first,  when  all  the  suffra- 
gettes were  homely  old  maids  they  objected,  but  now 
that  every  woman  has  joined  the  movement  they  have 
been  forced  to  give  way. 

Thus,  we  see  that  this  woman  who  has  nothing  to  do 
in  the  home  beyond  asking  her  husband  to  use  the  can- 
opener,  invades  all  the  activities  of  man  in  his  work; 
she  enters  triumphantly  into  politics;  she  competes 
openly  with  man  in  his  activities,  even  to  the  point  of 
bringing  bitter  competition  into  the  struggle  of  life.  And 
man  is  surrendering  to  this  new  master.  To-day  noth- 
ing is  more  common  than  to  see  a  man  washing  dishes  at 
home.  In  advice  given  by  newspapers  and  magazines 
to  women  in  the  women's  section  I  have  many  times 
read  this :  "Find  out  if  your  sweetheart  helps  his  mother 
to  wash  the  dishes ;  if  he  has  not  the  spirit  of  helping  in 
the  kitchen,  do  not  marry  him." 

I  think  some  day  there  will  be  a  new  revolution  in  the 
United  States.  This  time,  not  on  account  of  the  negroes, 
but  on  account  of  the  women.  Men  will  arm  to  defend 
themselves  against  this  woman,  who  will  no  longer  be  a 
woman,  since  she  is  voluntarily  renouncing  her  sex. 

Men  do  not  realize  here  what  this  invasion  of  woman 
means,  this  domination  of  woman,  this  denaturalization 
of  woman.  Woman  is  the  "boss,"  the  master  of  the 
United  States.  She  will  soon  dictate  the  legislation  of 
the  whole  country. 

She  herself  is  above  the  law.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
the  great  trials  in  this  country  in  which  women  have  ap- 
peared as  criminals.     Almost  always  they  are  acquitted : 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  123 

"Not  guilty."  Not  long  ago  a  sensational  case  was 
discussed,  that  of  Miss  Grace  Lusk.  In  her  first  trial  she 
"was  condemned  to  several  years '  imprisonment ;  but  this 
was  because  instead  of  killing  her  lover,  she  killed  the 
sweetheart  of  her  lover.  Between  a  murdered  woman 
and  a  woman  assassin  the  sympathy  of  the  jury  is  with 
the  murdered  woman ;  but  between  a  murdered  man  and 
a  woman  assassin,  the  sympathy  of  the  jury  is  with  the 
assassin. 

This  favoritism  of  the  law  towards  woman  can  be 
seen  from  day  to  day  in  this  country.  One  example 
will  be  enough.  In  Pittsburgh,  Pennsylvania,  a  woman 
appeared  before  the  judge  with  a  complaint  that  her 
husband  would  not  allow  her  dog  to  sleep  in  the  same 
bed  with  them,  as  if  it  were  their  child.  The  man  pro- 
tested that  the  dog  was  dirty,  had  fleas,  snored  and  dis- 
turbed him  at  night,  making  it  impossible  for  him  to 
work  the  next  day.  The  woman  maintained  that  it  was 
the  best  behaved  dog  in  the  world,  much  more  so  than 
her  husband,  and  the  most  lovable  creature.  (I  do  not 
know  if  you  are  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  there  is 
in  almost  every  large  city  in  this  country  a  cemetery 
for  dogs,  with  mausoleums  and  even  epitaphs.)  The 
charge  of  the  woman  in  this  case,  against  her  husband, 
will  probably  seem  to  you  on  the  face  of  it  preposterous ; 
but  even  more  preposterous  was  the  decision  of  the 
judge.  He  fined  the  husband  twenty  dollars,  and,  as  he 
had  not  the  money,  he  was  sent  to  jail  for  twenty  days. 

Women  ought  to  oppose  this  method  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  law.  If  they  consider  themselves  entitled  to 
the  same  rights  as  men,  they  ought  to  face  the  conse- 
quences of  law  on  an  equality  of  conditions.  They  ought 
to  conduct  themselves  like  a  young  lady  whose  acquaint- 


124     TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

ance  I  made  in  the  hotel  and  who  entered  a  trolley  car 
in  which  all  the  seats  were  taken.  I  immediately  offered 
her  my  seat,  but  she  refused  to  accept  it.  Asking  her 
why  she  did  so,  she  answered  me:  "I  do  not  see  why 
you  offer  your  seat  to  a  woman  and  not  to  one  of  the  men 
standing.     I  am  neither  weaker  nor  inferior.  *.' 

Talking  the  other  day  with  another  American  lady, 
she  told  me  that  she  was  of  the  opinion  that  wedding 
rings  should  be  abolished,  since  this  was  a  survival  of 
the  times  when  woman  was  the  slave  of  man.  That 
woman  did  not  even  stop  to  think  that  some  men  also 
wear  a  wedding  ring.  She  also  said  that  the  custom  of 
throwing  rice  and  old  shoes  at  the  newlyweds  should  be 
suppressed,  as  that  was  a  survival  of  the  time  when  men 
abducted  women,  whereas  to-day  they  went  of  their  own 
free  will.  She  asked  me  if  in  Chile  we  also  throw  shoes 
at  newly  married  couples,  and  I  answered  that  there  the 
bridegroom  throws  coins  to  the  people  in  the  street  fol- 
lowing the  pair  from  the  church. 

"Oh,"  she  said  to  me,  "that  is  a  survival  of  the  times 
when  men  bought  their  wives.  The  world  is  still  bound 
to  the  past,  but  a  new  era  is  now  being  born ;  man  will 
no  longer  be  the  master  of  the  earth ;  the  turn  of  woman 
has  arrived,  she  who  has  been  the  slave  of  man  for  cen- 
turies." 

She  was  very  much  astonished  to  hear  of  the  condi- 
tions of  our  women,  which  I  described  as  best  I  could, 
wishing  to  impress  her  with  the  happiness  of  our  homes ; 
but  all  her  comment  was  this :  ' '  We  are  still  very  busy 
with  our  campaigns  within  this  country;  but  we  shall 
soon  begin  to  send  women  missionaries  to  foreign  coun- 
tries, just  as  our  churches  are  doing." 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  125 

So  that  we  must  prepare  ourselves  to  receive  Ameri- 
can suffragette  missionaries,  who  will  not  mind  if  the 
people  throw  stones  at  them,  because  they  are  even  ac- 
customed to  go  to  jail,  the  victims  of  their  civilizing 
campaigns. 

From  everything  that  I  have  been  able  to  observe,  it 
seems  to  me  that  here  in  love  affairs  the  roles  have  been 
reversed,  and  that  the  women  make  love  to  the  men. 
They  are  creating  a  new  philosophy  of  life.  Women 
here  write  many  more  novels  and  dramas  than  men. 
There  are  more  girls  studying  in  the  high  schools  than 
boys,  and  the  same  tendency  is  seen  in  colleges  and  uni- 
versities. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  men  are  beginning  to 
feel  this  new  servitude.  During  all  the  months  that  I 
have  been  here,  I  see  from  day  to  day  without  a  single 
exception,  in  one  of  the  newspapers  of  this  city,  The  Chi- 
cago Herald  and  Examiner,  a  cartoon  section  with  this 
general  heading,  "Let  the  wedding  hells  ring  out," 
wherein  the  theme,  exploited  in  every  imaginable  form, 
is  man,  the  victim  of  woman  by  marriage.  I  do  not 
know  if  this  is  a  sign  that  men  are  beginning  to  open 
their  eyes. 

The  wildest  inconsistencies  seem  to  be  the  rule  in  this 
country.  Here  is  one  of  them :  I  believe  that  in  no  coun- 
try in  the  world  is  the  Bible  more  venerated  than  in  the 
United  States.  In  every  important  hotel,  in  every  room, 
there  is  a  copy  for  each  traveler.  Well  then,  the  Bible 
says  in  a  hundred  and  one  different  places  that  the  wife 
must  abide  by  the  will  of  her  husband,  that  the  wife 
must  obey  her  husband.  This  is  a  biblical  precept  that 
has  been  respected  during  twenty  centuries  of  Chris- 


\ 


126      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

tianity.    How  is  it  that  this  country,  which  reveres  the 
Bible,  acts  in  such  open  contradiction  of  it? 


Your  affectionate  husband 


Miss  Jones  finished  reading  this  letter  without  any 
bitter  feeling ;  on  the  contrary,  it  made  her  laugh  heart- 
ily. At  first  she  thought  the  best  way  would  be  to  an- 
swer the  letter  in  a  vein  of  burlesque;  but,  fearing  to 
wound  the  susceptibilities  of  her  unknown  friend,  she 
wrote  thus: 

Madam : 

I  do  not  object  to  the  facts,  the  information  that  your 
husband  gives  you  in  all  his  letters.  Much  of  this  data 
is  taken  directly  by  him  from  our  most  authorized 
sources,  from  our  own  statistics,  but  when  he  gets  his 
notions  from  newspaper  paragraphs,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
woman  who  succeeded  in  having  her  husband  put  in  jail 
because  he  would  not  allow  her  dog  to  sleep  with  them, 
it  would  be  better  not  to  take  them  too  literally.  The 
journalist,  in  order  to  impress  his  reader  and  publish 
something  different,  very  often  exaggerates  one  detail  of 
a  piece  of  news,  giving  the  most  prominence  to  the  least 
important  part.  Probably  in  the  case  to  which  your 
husband  refers,  the  woman  complained  of  cruelty.  Per- 
haps the  dispute  arose  from  the  incident  of  the  dog 
sleeping  with  them,  and  in  the  course  of  the  quarrel 
he  maltreated  his  wife.     Hence  the  fine. 

There  is  nothing  more  dangerous,  madam,  than  a  little 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  127 

of  the  truth,  because  that  little  leads  to  the  belief  that  an 
assertion  is  true  in  its  entirety;  just  as,  in  the  world 
of  physics,  a  ton  of  coal  has  power  to  move  for  one  mile 
thousands  of  tons  of  material,  so  also  in  the  moral  world, 
an  ounce  of  truth  is  strong  enough  to  drag  a  ton  of  lies 
for  thousands  and  thousands  of  miles.  Never  trust, 
madam,  to  a  little  of  the  truth.  Truth  cannot  be  taken 
like  whiskey,  with  soda;  but  only  pure,  like  milk.  This 
is  the  besetting  sin,  in  my  opinion,  of  your  husband's 
letters,  in  which  he  formulates  his  doctrines  from  an 
unusual  paragraph  in  a  newspaper,  from  a  conversation 
with  a  crazy  woman,  from  a  quotation  of  a  speech  in  this 
country  where  every  one  believes  himself  authorized  to 
voice  his  ideas  and  sentiments.  But  in  general,  madam, 
I  do  not  object  to  the  "data"  and  the  "facts"  that  your 
husband  gives  you.  I  do  object  to  his  interpretation  of 
them. 

Above  all,  in  order  to  judge  these  problems  of  wom- 
an's suffrage  in  the  different  countries,  it  is  necessary 
to  bear  in  mind  a  very  special  circumstance.  In  Latin 
countries,  in  Germany  and  in  Japan,  the  family  is  the 
social  unit;  on  the  other  hand,  in  our  country,  the  indi- 
vidual is  the  social  unit.  I  think  that  I  have  read  that 
formerly  in  Japan  the  family  was  so  much  the  social 
unit  of  the  Empire  that  when  one  of  its  members  was 
condemned  to  death,  the  sentence  very  often  included 
the  whole  of  the  family.  Among  us,  if  the  husband  is 
sentenced  to  prison,  his  wife  has  the  right  to  ask  for  a 
divorce,  and  also  the  right  to  marry  another  man,  if  she 
wishes.  Among  us,  each  individual,  man  or  woman,  is  a 
"social  unit";  in  the  Latin- American  countries,  to  a 
certain  extent,  the  family  is  the  "social  unit."  And  this 
explains    why   your   husband    cannot    imagine    how    a 


128      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

woman  in  Chile  could  think  differently  to  her  husband 
in  matters  of  politics.  This  also  explains  in  part  why  in 
those  countries  children  enjoy  the  social  prerogatives  of 
their  parents  on  a  much  larger  scale  than  in  my  country, 
even  when  they  have  inherited  neither  their  merits  nor 
their  fortunes. 

The  most  elemental  of  her  rights,  that  of  patria  po- 
testas,  is  denied  to  the  woman  of  your  country.  A 
widow  is  not  permitted  to  administer  the  estate  of  her 
children  in  their  minority,  whereas  a  widower  is  en- 
titled to  do  so.  If,  after  the  unwinding  of  much  red 
tape,  she  obtains  permission  from  the  court  to  act  as 
her  children's  trustee,  the  law  compels  her  to  render 
periodically  written  account  of  her  administration,  just 
as  if  she  were  a  minor  herself. 

Over  there  woman  is,  economically  and  politically 
speaking,  a  thing;  she  has  neither  independence  nor  in- 
dividuality of  her  own.  As  in  Japan,  this  conception  of 
responsibility  of  the  whole  family  for  a  delinquency 
committed  by  one  of  its  members  has  changed,  so  also 
the  individual  all  over  the  world  is  gaining  his  person- 
ality and  his  independence.  We  already  see  that  even 
in  France  and  in  Italy,  countries  where  the  family  is  the 
social  unit,  the  campaign  for  woman  suffrage  is  progress- 
ing. In  France  the  principle  of  feminine  municipal 
vote  has  been  accepted ;  and  after  the  war,  you  will  see 
how  the  French  woman  will  win  all  her  electoral  rights. 
The  scarcity  of  men  has  obliged  the  women  there  to  work 
in  the  factories,  and  they  are  beginning  to  understand 
that  they  have  new  responsibilities  and  new  rights.  Even 
in  Germany  the  women  are  holding  meetings,  asking  for 
woman  suffrage.  In  Latin  America  education  of  the 
women  is  a  very  recent  thing  and  is  still  very  limited,  but 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  129 

in  proportion  as  the  education  of  the  women  advances, 
the  way  of  judging  of  woman  will  change,  and  she  will 
come  to  be  a  social  unit. 

For  a  long  time  the  problem  of  the  mental  inferiority 
of  woman  has  been  debated,  and  a  large  number  of 
'  *  wise  men"  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  we  are 
inferiorly  gifted,  because  among  other  reasons,  our  con- 
tributions to  the  world  of  science,  art,  and  literature 
have  been  almost  nothing  compared  with  those  of  man. 
These  ''wise  men"  have  not  taken  into  consideration, 
however,  that  for  centuries  knowledge  and  instruction 
have  been  monopolized  by  man,  leaving  to  us  only  the 
simple  domestic  tasks.  This  has  been  responsible  for  the 
conviction,  universally  held  by  Germany,  that  woman 
is  reserved  only  for  these  three  cults:  "Kuche,  Kirche, 
Kinder"  (cooking,  church,  children). 

Now,  however,  people  are  looking  at  things  through 
different  prisms.  The  education  of  the  woman  has  been 
extended  throughout  the  world  and  very  particularly  in 
my  country;  and  even  when  one  cannot  gain  in  a  gen- 
eration the  fruit  that  man  gathers  as  the  consequence 
of  a  legendary  culture,  woman  is  proving,  in  all  activi- 
ties, the  immense  capacity  that  she  had  neither  developed 
or  utilized  in  past  centuries. 

Your  husband  has  courteously  refrained  from  telling 
you  in  any  part  of  his  letter  that  woman  is  intellectually 
inferior  to  man.  I  think  I  have  no  reason  to  debate  this 
point  with  you.  It  seems  to  me  we  shall  agree  on  this 
matter.  Both  of  us  are  women  and  it  would  be  hateful 
to  recognize  our  inferiority.  The  mere  fact  that  your 
husband  confides  his  social  impressions  of  my  country 
to  you  is  proof  that  he  puts  you  intellectually  on  the 
same  level  as  himself. 


130      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Discarding  all  this,  there  remain  only  two  aspects 
of  the  woman  suffrage  problem.  The  first  is  the  prob- 
lem of  right  and  of  justice;  the  second  is  the  problem 
of  social  convenience,  whether  or  no  it  is  advantageous 
to  have  woman's  contribution  in  matters  of  collective 
interest.  These  two  aspects,  madam,  I  wish  to  discuss 
with  you  in  these  notes.  I  take  pleasure  in  advance  in 
thinking  that  you  are  going  to  agree  with  me. 

If  we  admit  the  intellectual  and  moral  equality  of 
woman  with  respect  to  man,  I  do  not  see  by  what  pretext 
the  legislator  can  deprive  her  of  the  right  of  electing 
authorities  who,  with  their  laws,  have  so  much  influence 
in  her  destiny. 

If  we  were  to  admit  for  a  moment  what  your  husband 
says,  that  woman  thinks — or  ought  to  think — politically 
exactly  like  her  father  or  her  husband,  the  result  would 
be  that  the  vote  of  the  married  man  would  have  twice 
the  value  of  that  of  the  bachelor,  and  the  father  of  three 
daughters  would  have  a  fourfold  vote.  I  see  no  harm 
in  either  of  these  contingencies,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  widow,  the  woman  without  parents  and  the  inde- 
pendent woman  would  each  have  her  individual  vote, 
and  here  I  can  see  only  advantages.  However,  I  do 
not  understand  why,  in  the  most  intimate  and  loving 
homes,  woman  should  not  have  an  independent  vote  and 
opinion.  Woman  studies  problems  that  are  related  di- 
rectly with  herself  from  a  point  of  view  very  often  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  man.  The  problems  of  education, 
of  drink,  of  commercialized  vice,  of  gambling,  of  child 
labor  and  of  factory  conditions  affect  very  deeply  the 
feminine  conscience.  Is  it  just  that  the  assistance  of 
the  brains  and  heart  of  woman  be  disregarded  in  these 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  131 

problems,  circumscribing  all  her  activities  to  the  three 
German  Ks? 

In  my  country  we  have  given  the  right  of  voting  to 
the  negroes  and  to  the  most  uncultured  elements  of  our 
population.  Why  not  to  the  cultured  woman?  Is  it 
not  unjust  to  maintain  one-half  of  the  population,  which 
has  to  obey  the  laws,  without  the  right  of  electing  those 
who  are  going  to  make  the  laws  ? 

Can  a  country  call  itself  a  democracy,  that  is  to  say,  a 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  peo- 
ple, when  it  withholds  citizenship  from  half  its  popula- 
tion? The  letter  of  President  Wilson  to  Senator  Shields, 
to  which  your  husband  alludes,  says  that  in  a  large 
measure  the  morals  of  this  country  and  of  the  world  will 
rest  in  our  sincere  adherence  to  democratic  principles; 
it  will  depend  on  the  action  that  the  Senate  takes  in  this 
matter  now  so  critically  important.  The  President  re- 
fers here  to  the  simple  aspect  of  justice,  and  he  under- 
stands that  this  country  cannot  be  fighting  for  democ- 
racy in  the  world  while  democracy  is  limited  to  the 
males. 

I  do  not  believe,  madam,  that  our  world,  the  feminine 
world,  ends  at  the  door  of  our  home,  that  we  have  noth- 
ing to  do  but  with  that  which  is  within  our  home.  Our 
home  extends  beyond  the  portals.  Woman  has  like  man, 
perhaps  more  so,  a  very  deep  interest  in  the  well-being, 
in  the  progress  of  the  community.  We  are  an  integral 
part  of  it j  why  then  should  we  be  relegated  to  act  as 
mere  spectators? 

Your  husband  says,  madam,  that  if  woman  wants  the 
right  of  vote,  she  should  also  be  recruited  to  go  to  war, 
to  be  a  soldier.  In  the  first  place,  woman — it  has  so 
happened  in  my  country — has  offered  herself  in  battal- 


132      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

ions  to  go  to  war  to  serve  in  the  Department  of  the 
Red  Cross,  where,  as  in  this  war,  she  has  met  death 
with  little  less  frequency  than  soldiers.  By  the  very  act 
of  going  to  sea,  where  death-dealing  submarines  navi- 
gate like  fish,  she  runs  the  same  risk  as  our  regular  sol- 
diers. But  I  think,  madam,  that  the  triumphal  entrance 
of  woman  in  universal  legislation,  in  the  legislation  of 
the  allied  countries,  in  that  of  the  central  empires  and 
of  the  entire  world,  will  tend  to  do  away  with  wars  in 
the  future.  In  the  world  of  the  future,  will  not  the 
conscience  of  mothers  of  all  the  countries  that  have  seen 
the  sacrifice  of  their  husbands  and  sons  in  this  sea  of 
blood  which  is  now  stifling  humanity,  force  them  to  in- 
tervene to  prevent  the  committal  of  another  such  crime 
on  the  earth !  The  incorporation  of  woman  into  citizen 
life  is  a  triumph  of  humanity  that  is  going  to  be  more 
profitably  revolutionary  than  the  invention  of  steam  or 
electricity. 

Your  husband  says  that  the  home  is  the  place  for 
woman ;  but  what  about  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
women  that  modern  industrial  life  has  driven  out  of  the 
home  and  sent  to  the  factory?  He  thinks  only  of  the 
women  of  the  wealthy  classes,  those  who  are  preoccupied 
exclusively  by  the  three  German  Ks,  and  forgets  alto- 
gether the  vast  majority  of  women  in  the  world.  In 
his  eyes  it  is  a  very  serious  matter  for  a  woman  to  be- 
come the  manager  of  a  bank,  or  a  doctor,  or  a  lawyer, 
but  it  is  unimportant  that  she  should  work  in  a  factory, 
making  matches,  preserves  or  ammunition. 

You  must  agree  with  me,  madam,  that  it  is  right  for 
woman  to  vote  and  to  take  part  in  decisions  of  a  social 
nature  which  will  concern  her  and  her  children.  Gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  133 

does  not  mean  government  of  man,  by  man  and  for  man. 
Woman  is  a  part  of  the  people,  and  the  time  has  arrived 
for  her  to  claim  her  rights  for  the  good  of  humanity. 

Regarding  the  advisability  from  a  social  standpoint 
for  woman  to  take  part  in  matters  of  State,  it  suffices  to 
observe  what  has  happened  in  the  world  since  woman 
has  partially  succeeded  in  obtaining  her  electoral  rights. 
In  Norway,  Australia,  New  Zealand  and  Denmark  women 
have  the  same  electoral  rights  as  men,  and  you  will  agree 
with  me  that  these  countries  are  among  the  most  ad- 
vanced in  the  world.  In  Sweden,  England,  Wales,  Ire- 
land and  Scotland  woman  has  the  right  of  municipal 
suffrage.  In  those  of  our  states  where  woman  has  all 
the  civil  rights  of  man  social  legislation  is,  without  a 
doubt,  more  equitable.  It  was  by  the  vote  of  the  women 
that  a  chief  of  police  in  California,  who  was  protecting 
vice,  was  recalled.  Soon  after  women  secured  the  right 
of  vote  in  Washington,  the  mayor  and  the  chief  of  police 
of  Seattle  awakened  public  attention  by  their  corrupt 
action  in  a  certain  matter,  and  in  three  days  twenty- 
three  thousand  women  asked  for  and  obtained  the  recall 
of  the  mayor  and  had  the  chief  of  police  put  in  jail. 
An  eight-hour  work  day  for  women,  equal  pay  for  women 
and  men  workers,  female  teachers  who  visit  homes  to 
complete  the  education  of  children,  and  maternity  pen- 
sions, are  all  the  fruit,  madam,  of  woman  suffrage ;  but 
woman  suffrage  is  not  only  beneficial  to  woman,  but  is 
also  directly  so  for  man,  although  it  would  be  fully  justi- 
fied if  only  for  the  service  it  has  rendered  in  the  cause 
of  the  redemption  of  our  sex,  which  has  very  slowly 
shaped  its  own  destiny  in  history.  Let  us  not  forget, 
madam,  those  days  of  ancient  Indo-European  civiliza- 
tion in  which  the  father  was  the  despot  and  the  high- 


134      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDEBSTANDING 

priest  of  the  domestic  cult,  and  could  punish,  kill  or 
sell  his  wife.  In  this  slow  evolution,  the  world  is  only 
now  awakening  to  the  benefits  of  human  society  (in  the 
most  ample  acceptation  of  the  word)  and  is  relinquish- 
ing the  sway  of  a  society  composed  of  one  sex. 

If  the  idea  of  woman  suffrage  seems  strange  and  even 
extravagant  to  Latin  America,  it  is  because  woman  there 
has  been  kept  in  systematic  ignorance.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, man  has  also  been  kept  in  systematic  ignorance 
there.  "With  the  exception  of  a  small  group,  certainly, 
in  both  cases.  Many  of  our  social  problems  of  to-day 
will  inevitably  be  problems  for  solution  half  a  century 
later,  or  even  more,  for  those  countries.  What  is  hap- 
pening with  woman  suffrage  is  happening  with  prohibi- 
tion. "We  have  progressed  more  rapidly  than  those 
countries  for  historic  reasons  very  easy  to  understand. 

Of  course,  your  problem  is  very  different  from  ours. 
To  give  the  women  of  Latin  America  the  right  to  vote 
would  mean  duplicating  an  uneducated  electoral  force. 
They  have  not  arrived  at  the  necessary  stage  of  giving 
the  vote  to  woman  in  general.  I  fear  they  have  not  yet 
reached  the  standard  which  should  justify  the  extension 
of  the  vote  to  all  men ;  but  just  as  it  would  be  advisable 
to  curtail  the  right  of  voting  among  the  uneducated  mas- 
culine elements — trying  at  the  same  time  to  educate 
them  with  a  view  to  the  restoration  of  this  right — I  think 
it  would  be  a  matter  of  justice  and  expediency  to  grant 
immediately  the  vote  to  every  woman  who  possesses 
certain  requisites  of  culture,  for  instance,  a  knowledge 
of  the  subjects  taught  in  the  high  schools. 

Tell  me,  madam,  you  who  know  how  the  cultured 
woman  in  your  country  is  beginning  to  work  so  success- 
fully in  philanthropic  lines,  and  has  founded  homes  for 


WOMAN'S  SUFFRAGE  135 

children,  leagues  to  combat  tuberculosis  and  benevolent 
societies  of  every  kind,  bow  much  more  could  they  do  if 
the  leaders  were  themselves  legislators,  promulgators  of 
beneficial  social  laws  and  vetoers  of  pernicious  social 
laws?  Are  the  politics  of  your  country  clean  in  the 
highest  degree?  Are  not  anti-social  laws  passed  there? 
Are  not  frauds  committed?  Is  the  milk  that  is  sold  in 
the  streets  pure  ?  Is  food  never  adulterated  ?  Is  white- 
slavery  being  combated  as  it  should  be?  Is  the  drink 
habit  being  curbed?  Are  the  factories  where  women 
work  sanitary  ?  Are  the  wages  of  women  equitable  ?  Is 
education  being  spread  profusely  in  every  city,  village 
and  farm?  All  these  are  political  problems,  madam, 
problems  that  need  the  direct  intervention  of  woman 
the  world  over. 

Politics  are  dirt,  your  husband  says,  and  we  should 
keep  our  women  clean.  The  fact  is,  woman  should  inter- 
vene in  politics  just  for  the  purpose  of  cleansing  them. 
It  is  the  woman  of  one  continent,  my  dear  madam,  who  is 
speaking  to  the  woman  of  another  continent,  and  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  we  are  separated  by  oceans  and  moun- 
tain ranges,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  do  not  know 
each  other,  we  can  at  least  agree  that  woman,  all  over  the 
world,  is  endowed  with  a  big  heart,  capable  of  doing  as 
much  or  more  good,  of  disseminating  as  much  or  more 
true  lovingkindness  than  men. 

I  have  very  frequently  read  the  criticisms  of  Latin 
American  journalists  with  regard  to  the  woman's  suf- 
frage movement  in  my  country.  They  try  to  discredit 
the  new  democratic  tendencies  of  the  world  which  would 
make  of  woman  a  citizen,  saying — as  does  your  husband 
— that  this  movement  owes  its  being  to  unattractive 
spinsters  or  old  women  who  for  those  reasons  are  dis- 


136      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

contented  with  their  lot.  Their  idea  of  getting  even  so- 
cially is  to  obtain  some  authority  in  the  community  as  a 
compensation  for  the  neglect  of  which  they  have  been 
innocent  victims. 

It  is  perhaps  the  woman  without  special  physical 
charm  that  has  taken  the  most  active  part  in  these  move- 
ments; and,  generally  speaking,  it  is  she  who  has  felt 
most  deeply  the  neglect  to  which  women,  considered  as 
a  social  element,  have  been  subjected  throughout  history. 
If  this  is  so,  the  fact  can  easily  be  explained  without 
injury  to  our  cause.  But  you  may  be  sure  that  to-day 
the  illustrated  papers  of  the  whole  world  might  be  filled 
with  portraits  representing  the  flower  an#  cream  of 
feminine  beauty,  all  of  them  soldiers  in  the  army  of 
women  who  are  fighting  to  obtain  the  rights  of  citizen- 
ship. 

It  will  be  a  new  world,  madam,  a  world  in  which 
woman  will  cooperate  wholeheartedly  in  the  noble  work 
of  conducting  the  destinies  of  each  nation.  Until  now 
mankind  has  not  taken  advantage  of  women's  help  in 
the  fight  for  progress,  except  in  a  minimum  degree. 
The  new  world  which  is  dawning  will  be  one  of  all  man- 
kind instead  of,  as  now,  a  world  of  half  mankind. 

Your  Friend  of  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER  VII 

MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 

NO  great  efforts  of  imagination  were  necessary  on 
the  part  of  Miss  Jones  to  guess  what  would  be 
the  theme  of  the  next  letter.  To  speak  of  mar- 
riage and  divorce  in  the  United  States  after  debating 
the  matter  of  woman's  suffrage  was  only  what  one 
might  expect;  she  felt  therefore  no  surprise  when  be- 
ginning to  read  the  letter  which  follows  below: 

Chicago,  111., ,  1918. 

My  dearest:  i 

I  sometimes  wonder  why  married  couples  in  this  coun- 
try get  divorced,  since  it  appears  to  me  that  they  are 
practically  divorced  from  the  day  of  their  wedding. 
In  fact,  the  husband  lives  his  life  and  the  wife  hers. 
The  wife  very  often  has  her  personal  friends,  very  amia- 
ble men,  who  take  her  out  riding,  to  dine  at  restaurants, 
and  to  the  theater,  while  the  husband  does  not  even  know 
these  intimate  friends  of  his  own  wife.  He  breakfasts 
at  home  and  never  returns  until  dinner  time.  I  do  not 
think  the  Yankee  exists  who  ever  took  lunch  at  home. 
A  possible  exception  might  be  made  for  the  honeymoon 
period. 

Neverthless,  living  so  separated,  so  divorced,   they 

137 


138      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

often  find  life  together  unbearable,  and  ask  with  terrific 
frequency  for  a  more  effective  divorce,  which  the  law 
promptly  grants  them  with  a  generosity  worthy  of  a  bet- 
ter cause. 

I  told  you  in  my  previous  letter  that  I  have  discovered 
here  a  new  sex  j  the  American  woman  who  is  neither  man 
nor  woman.  "Well,  there  also  exists  in  this  country  a 
new  kind  of  child :  the  orphan  whose  parents  are  alive, 
the  orphan  whose  parents  have  had  recourse  to  the  ultra 
liberal  laws  of  this  country  to  ask  for  their  definite  sep- 
aration and  their  liberty  to  marry  again  for  the  most 
trifling  reasons. 

The  newspapers  of  the  United  States  publish  comic 
items  with  extraordinary  frequency,  on  every  page.  I 
do  not  know  why.  I  understand  why  butter  is  spread 
on  bread,  but  I  see  no  necessity  for  spreading  margarine 
on  the  butter.  I  mean  that  the  actual  news  items  they 
publish  are  much  funnier  than  the  jokes  they  make  up. 
I  think  that  the  list  of  divorces  and  their  causes,  pub- 
lished every  day  by  the  newspapers,  furnish  the  most 
entertaining  reading  imaginable.  It  is  not  uncommon 
for  a  woman  to  ask  for  a  divorce  because  her  husband 
snores  at  night,  which  does  not  permit  her  to  dream  at 
her  ease. 

In  our  country  everybody  is  familiar  with  the  cards 
announcing  marriages,  births,  christenings,  or  deaths  j 
but  here  a  card  is  also  sent  out  when  a  lady  announces 
to  her  relatives  and  friends  that  she  is  divorced.  Not 
long  ago  I  read  one  of  these  announcing  a  case  much 
talked  about  on  account  of  the  social  standing  of  the 
divorced  woman.  Printed  on  severe-looking  parchment, 
with  all  the  luxury  proper  to  a  lady  of  high  degree  the; 
card  read  thus: 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  139 

"By  authority  of  the  decree  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  granted  to  me,  dated  June  the 
tenth,  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  sixteen,  I  have 
elected  to  resume  my  maiden  name  and  will  hereafter  be 
known  as  Madame  Evelyn  Florence  Partridge. 

"  Evelyn  Engalitcheff, 
Hotel  Netherland,  City  of  New  York." 

To  the  prince,  he*  ex-husband,  the  divorced  woman 
sent  one  of  these  cards,  and  he,  reading  it  at  the  Wal- 
dorf-Astoria Hotel,  was  seen  to  smile  with  an  air  of 
deepest  satisfaction.    Isn't  this  delightful? 

But  the  following  is  not  so  delightful :  During  the  last 
fifty  years  there  have  been  four  million  five  hundred  and 
eighty-six  thousand  seven  hundred  and  thirty-two  men 
and  women  separated  by  law  in  the  United  States,  and 
these  have  left  one  million  six  hundred  and  eighty-nine 
thousand  six  hundred  and  sixty-two  orphans  with  their 
parents  living.  Although  the  tendency  of  North  Ameri- 
can laws  is  to  restrain  divorce,  it  is  increasing  every  day, 
not  only  on  account  of  the  increase  in  the  population, 
because  it  increases  three  times  as  fast  as  the  population. 
Just  look  at  these  figures,  which  are  sadly  eloquent : 


In  1867  there 

were  in  this  country 

9,937  divorces 

In  1877     " 

k     n    a 

ii 

14,800 

In  1886     " 

tt      tt     tt 

ii 

25,535       u 

In  1896     " 

it      tt     li 

tt 

42,937 

In  1906     " 

ii      ii    li 

tt 

72,062       " 

In  1916     " 

ii     tt    ii 

tt 

124,000       " 

The  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  thousand  divorces 
in  1916  left  about  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  thou- 
sand orphans  with  living  parents.  In  Cook  County,  in 
which  is  the  city  of  Chicago,  and  which  has  more  or  less 


140      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

the  same  population  as  that  of  our  country,  thsre  are 
more  than  five  hundred  divorces  each  month,  more  than 
one  for  every  hour  of  the  day,  in  the  long  days  of  sum- 
mer. Just  imagine  the  consternation  there  would  be  in 
Chile  at  the  news  of  such  a  horror  having  occurred 
among  us. 

The  divorce  laws  of  the  different  States  are  not  the 
same.  People  often  discuss  the  necessity  for  federal  leg- 
islation to  make  the  law  uniform  in  this  respect,  but 
there  are  many  States  that  wish  to  retain  their  full  in- 
dependence to  enact  such  laws  regarding  matrimonial 
relations  as  they  see  fit.  While  in  South  Carolina  di- 
vorce does  not  exist— the  only  decent  State  in  this  re- 
spect— in  others  the  laws  are  ultra  liberal,  and  divorce, 
with  the  right  to  marry  again,  is  granted  to  couples 
for  the  most  absurd  reasons.  In  West  Virginia  a  wife 
can  ask  for  a  divorce  if  she  learns  that  her  husband, 
before  marriage,  was  a  "notoriously  licentious"  person. 
If  this  law  were  to  be  put  into  effect  in  South  America, 
practically  every  wife  could  get  divorced.  In  many 
parts  of  this  country  the  husband  or  wife  can  ask  for 
and  obtain  a  divorce  without  his  or  her  life  companion 
knowing  anything  about  it.  The  husband  may  come 
home  and  find  among  the  cans  just  opened  for  his  din- 
ner, together  with  the  grocer's  bill,  a  divorce  decree  in 
which  the  judge  has  declared  his  wife  single  that  very 
afternoon. 

One  of  our  countrymen  who  has  written  very  enthu- 
siastic books  about  this  country  had  a  certain  experience 
in  New  York  which  he  relates  himself,  perhaps  without 
realizing  the  seriousness  of  what  he  is  writing,  since  he 
is  apt  to  take  things  lightly.  In  the  boarding  house 
where  he  was  staying  there  was  also  a  young  lady,  very 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  141 

beautiful,  an  invalid,  forced  to  remain  forever  seated  in 
an  invalid's  chair.  The  lady  was  married,  and  her  hus- 
band, an  engineer,  took  only  his  breakfast  and  dinner 
with  her.  During  the  day  she  was  wheeled  about  in 
the  park  by  another  gentleman.  One  day  the  lady  dis- 
appeared early  in  the  morning.  The  gentleman  who  so 
assiduously  took  care  of  her  went  to  see  our  compatriot, 
to  whom  he  said: 

"Do  you  know  what  has  happened?" 

"matt" 

"Mrs. has  been  sent  to  Buffalo." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Her  husband  sent  her  there  against  her  will.  You 
know  we  love  each  other,  but  her  husband — that  imbecile 
— wants  to  put  himself  between  us,  and  has  sent  her 
back  to  her  father's  house.  The  poor  girl,  an  invalid, 
had  not  the  strength  to  resist,  and  has  sent  me  this  let- 
ter." 

"But  she  is  married,"  our  countryman  answered  him. 

"And  what  has  that  got  to  do  with  it?  So  am  I  mar- 
ried.   Both  of  us  can  obtain  a  divorce  at  the  same  time." 

Very  American ! 

I  spoke  to  you  in  my  last  letter  of  the  case  of  a  Miss 
Lusk.  This  young  lady,  a  teacher  of  psychology,  fell 
in  love  with  a  veterinary  surgeon  and  manufacturer 
of  patent  medicines.  This  veterinarian  was  married, 
and  consequently  the  teacher  of  psychology  asked  her 
lover  to  tell  his  wife  that  she — the  wife — was  unduly 
interposed  between  the  love  of  both.  The  following  is 
a  copy  of  a  letter  that  the  lady  sent  to  her  lover's  wife, 
a  document  which  was  recently  published  in  all  the 
newspapers  of  this  city,  and,  I  imagine,  of  the  country : 


142     THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Roberts:  I  have  just  come  home  from 
spending  the  evening  with  your  husband.  He  has  told 
me  the  full  details  of  your  Eastern  trip,  etc.  We  plan 
to  be  together  to-morrow  in  the  city.  I  am  going  to  ask 
him  then  to  decide  finally  between  us.  He  has  told  me 
that  it  was  I  who  had  all  his  affections.  I  have  begged 
him  to  go  to  you  and  tell  you  the  situation  frankly,  for 
I  felt  you  were  a  big  enough  woman  to  desire  his  happi- 
ness." 

The  end  of  this  tragedy  was  that  Miss  Lusk  murdered 
Mrs.  Roberts,  one  consequence  of  which  was  that  all  her 
private  correspondence  was  brought  before  the  greedy 
eyes  of  the  public.  One  thing  at  least  may  be  said  for 
the  United  States :  Here  a  case  may  always  be  judged 
by  the  public  without  fear  of  error.  They  publish  every- 
thing in  their  newspapers,  even  the  most  intimate  secrets 
of  a  married  couple. 

When  a  married  woman  finds  that  she  loves  another 
man — and  this  seems  to  happen  frequently  here — it  is 
only  necessary  for  her  to  speak.  Woman  must  have  her 
way.  The  following  case  of  a  professor  of  Chicago  Uni- 
versity, which  occurred  recently,  will  serve  to  illustrate 

what  I  mean :  Mr. occupies  the  chair  of  professor  of 

preventive  medicine  in  the  university  that  bears  the 
name  of  this  city.  His  wife  expresses  to  him  her  desire 
of  getting  a  divorce,  but  the  professor,  who  really  loves 
her,  does  not  wish  to  give  his  consent.     She  tells  him 

frankly  that  she  loves  a  Mr. ,  whom  she  purposes  to 

marry  when  she  is  free.  The  professor  is  firm,  and  trusts 
that  his  wife  will  forget  this  illicit  passion.  He  does 
everything  possible  to  win  the  heart  of  his  own  wife.  As 
she  could  get  no  satisfaction  from  her  husband  and  as 
her  lover  was  sent  to  France  as  a  soldier,  she  asks  for  and 
obtains  an  appointment  as  nurse  in  a  hospital  in  France. 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  143 

The  husband  succeeds  in  having  this  appointment  an- 
nuled  by  giving  the  true  reasons  which  induced  his  wife 
to  abandon  their  home.  As  a  result  of  this  the  wife 
could  not  go  to  France,  but  she  left  her  husband,  and 
nobody  knows  where  she  is.  This  incident  was  published 
with  all  the  names  in  the  papers. 

I  could  fill  sheets  and  sheets  with  stories  of  divorces 
here.  There  is  no  respect  for  the  sanctity  of  marriage. 
I  saw  lately  in  The  Daily  News  an  illustrated  humorous 
dialogue  which  serves  to  corroborate  my  statements  from 
a  good-natured  point  of  view : 

John — "Why  have  you  chosen  the  month  of  June  to 
get  married?  You  know  that  June  is  the  high  summer 
here.,, 

Thomas — ' *  The  courts  close  in  June  and  remain  closed 
all  the  summer.  We  shall  have  to  stay  married  for  some 
time  at  all  events.' ' 

One  of  the  most  popular  American  poems  is  "Evange- 
line,"  by  Longfellow.  I  think  you  must  have  read  it  in 
Spanish.  The  story  is  simple  and  profoundly  moving. 
In  1775  the  English  government  roughly  ejected  a 
French  colony  in  Arcadia,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Evangeline, 
the  very  day  of  her  wedding,  was  separated  from  her 
husband  in  such  a  way  that  she  lost  all  trace  of  him. 
The  poem  describes  the  wandering  of  the  newly  married 
girl  in  search  of  her  husband,  always  faithful  to  her 
love,  rejecting  all  new  passion,  all  joy,  until  after  many 
years,  and  already  an  old  woman,  she  finds  her  husband 
on  his  death  bed  in  a  hospital  where  she  is  a  nurse,  and 
succumbs  with  him,  a  victim  of  her  grief.  This  is  the 
ecstasy  of  love,  as  we  understand  it.  But  Longfellow 
when  writing  this  poem  did  not  seek  inspiration  in  his 


144     TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

own  country,  since  his  poem  is,  to  some  extent,  an  imi- 
tation of  " Hermann  and  Dorothea,''  by  Goethe.  And 
yet,  the  poet,  thinking  no  doubt  that  it  was  unlikely  that 
an  American  girl  would  act  in  such  a  way,  had  to  make 
his  heroine,  Evangeline,  a  French  girl  by  blood  and 
temperament,  the  daughter  of  Bellefontaine,  whose  garb 
is  that ' '  brought  in  the  olden  times  from  France, ' '  whose 
lover  is  Gabriel  Lajeunesse,  and  the  village  in  which  he 
lived  is  "such  as  the  peasants  of  Normandy  built  in  the 
reign  of  the  Henries." 

Not  even  poets,  in  the  dreams  of  their  free  fantasy, 
can  disregard  truth. 

As  I  am  writing  to  you  about  marriages  and  divorces 
here,  this  morning  I  went  to  the  Court  of  Domestic  Eela- 
tions,  and  for  three  hours  I  listened  to  complaint  cases 
of  married  people  before  a  judge  who  hears  exclusively 
cases  of  matrimonial  disagreements,  in  which  husbands 
complain  of  their  wives  and  wives  complain  of  their 
husbands.  These  cases  are  not  brought  forward  with  a 
view  to  divorce,  but  treat  of  transitory  domestic  diffi- 
culties in  which  one  of  the  parties  asks  the  authority  of 
a  judge  to  intervene  and  give  a  ruling. 

The  judge  I  saw  hears  and  judges  from  a  high  desk, 
in  his  shirt  sleeves,  without  any  vest  or  jacket,  and  with 
as  little  ceremony  in  his  language  as  in  his  dress.  Dur- 
ing all  the  time  I  was  there  no  case  was  heard  of  a  man 
complaining  of  his  wife.  All  were  cases  of  wives  com- 
plaining of  their  husbands.  And  you  ought  to  see  with 
what  meekness  the  men  came  before  the  judge  and  how 
tyrannically  the  women  spoke  of  their  husbands:  like 
a  master  to  his  slave.  I  cannot  tell  you  all  the  incidents 
I  witnessed,  but  one  can  serve  as  a  sample  of  the  reasons 
which  bring  these  women  before  a  judge,  complaining 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  145 

of  the  conduct  of  their  husbands.  One  woman  com- 
plains that  her  husband  has  given  her  only  forty  dol- 
lars out  of  seventy-five  that  he  earns  every  two  weeks. 
She  speaks  with  the  insolence  of  a  creditor  who  not 
only  is  owed  money,  but  who  has  been  cheated.  After 
the  judge  has  heard  her  he  questions  the  husband  as  he 
would  question  a  criminal.  He  asks  what  he  has  done 
with  the  other  thirty-five  dollars  that  he  has  not  given 
to  his  wife.  The  poor  man  presents  a  doctor's  bill  for 
twenty  dollars  which  he  had  paid. 

"Did  your  husband  owe  this  money ?"  the  judge  asks 
the  wife. 

"Yes,  your  honor,  and  he  paid  it,"  the  wife  had  to 
admit, 

"But  what  have  you  done  with  the  other  fifteen  dol- 
lars?" asks  the  judge  of  the  husband.  It  later  devel- 
oped that  he  had  given  his  wife  two  dollars  on  a  certain 
occasion  and  more  later  on. 

"Is  that  so?"  the  judge  asks  the  wife. 

"Yes,  but  that  money  was  not  out  of  his  salary,"  she 
replies. 

Eventually  it  appeared  that  the  wife  had  received 
practically  all  the  money  except  about  four  dollars.  And 
after  everything  was  proved,  the  husband,  still  being 
afraid  that  the  judge  would  sentence  him,  takes  a  little 
piece  of  paper  out  of  his  pocket  and  passes  it  to  him, 
saying: 

"My  wife  very  often  leaves  me  papers  like  this  at 
home. ' '    The  judge  reads  in  a  loud  voice : 

"I  will  not  be  here  for  dinner.  The  potatoes  are  in 
a  bag  in  the  pantry.  Buy  ten  cents'  worth  of  butter 
and  fry  them."    And  the  piece  of  paper  continues  giv- 


146     TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

ing  directions  for  preparing  the  meal  that  she  had  in- 
tended for  him  that  day. 

I  will  say  for  your  comfort  that  the  judge  did  not 
sentence  the  husband,  and  you  ought  to  have  seen  the 
poor  man's  expression  of  gratitude. 

Oh !  it  does  not  astonish  me  that  the  men  get  divorced 
here.  What  astonishes  me  is  that  they  marry.  On  my 
part,  I  can  say  that  if  I  had  never  known  you,  if  the 
same  fate  had  befallen  me  as  befell  Eobinson  Crusoe, 
and  if,  on  his  famous  desert  island — our  island  of  Juan 
Fernandez — I  had  met,  instead  of  the  native  whom  he 
called  Friday,  a  modern  American  young  lady,  beautiful, 
ultra  cultured,  one  of  the  very  best,  in  a  word,  a  true 
type  of  the  feminine  jeunesse  doree  of  this  country,  if  I 
did  not  have  another  companion  on  the  island,  another 
living  being,  and  if  I  were  condemned  to  live  there  for 
the  rest  of  my  life,  I  would  play  tennis  with  this  girl, 
I  would  go  out  hunting  with  her — everything  but  make 
her  my  wife.  I  cannot  conceive  matrimonial  happiness 
with  a  Yankee  woman.  They  are  as  of  another  planet 
for  me.  The  following  from  a  newspaper  of  this  city  is 
more  a  philosophical  reflection  than  a  joke  : 

Mrs.  Gabb,  reading  a  newspaper,  says  to  her  husband : 
"I  see  here  that  a  rich  gentleman  from  the  West  has 
left  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  a  woman  who  re- 
fused to  marry  him  twenty  years  ago."  Mr.  Gabb  an- 
swers :  ' '  That 's  what  I  call  gratitude ! ' ' 

If  it  were  a  duty  of  our  government  to  look  out  for 
the  private  happiness  of  all  its  citizens,  they  ought  to  set 
aside  a  sum  in  the  yearly  budget  to  recompense  Yankee 
girls  for  not  marrying  Chilean  young  men,  who  un- 
fortunately come  to  this  country  to  study  and  are  crazy 
enough  to  fall  in  love  with  American  women. 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  147 

But,  on  mature  reflection,  one  need  not  be  astonished 
at  the  large  number  of  divorces  that  are  granted  here 
every  day.  To  meet  a  woman  for  the  first  time  and 
propose  marriage  to  her  is  pretty  frequent.  Marriages 
by  telegraph  are  not  unusual.  A  newspaper  of  Chicago 
makes  a  feature  of  getting  men  and  women  acquainted. 
The  proprietor  of  this  daily  was  once  candidate  for  the 
presidency.  I  have  already  spoken  to  you  about  this 
paper,  The  Herald  and  Examiner,  whose  owner  pos- 
sesses as  many  newspapers  in  this  country  as  one  would 
possess  neckties  in  our  country. 

The  newspaper  runs  a  free  matrimonial  agency.  One 
of  its  sections  that  is  published  every  day  in  two  columns 
is  called  "Lonely  Hearts.' '  A  woman  manages  this 
love  department  of  the  newspaper.  Any  man  or  woman 
can  write  to  the  editor,  asking  for  a  companion.  The 
letters  vary  but  are  more  or  less  of  the  following  tenor : 
"I  am  twenty  years  old,  tall,  fair,  and  have  blue  eyes. 
I  would  like  to  get  acquainted  with  a  young  man  over 
thirty.  I  prefer  one  with  dark  eyes.  He  must  be  sober, 
like  dancing  and  the  theater. ' '  One  man  writes :  "lam 
thirty  years  old,  weigh  one  hundred  and  sixty-three 
pounds ;  my  height  is  five  feet  six  inches.  I  work  in  the 
city  from  9  A.  M.  to  5  P.  M.  I  would  like  to  become 
acquainted  with  a  girl  from  18  to  22  years  old,  pleas- 
ing, intelligent,  with  the  idea  of  possibly  marrying. ' ' 

And  there  are  thousands  of  letters  of  the  same  kind. 
Black,  blue  and  dreamy  eyes,  blonde  and  black  hair  are 
offered.  Of  course,  these  letters  are  published,  and  the 
persons  who  fit  the  case  in  physique,  age  and  tempera- 
ment, answer  the  editor,  who  makes  the  two  "lonely 
hearts"  become  acquainted.  In  combination  with  this 
section,  the  newspaper  has  a  dance  and  picnic  club 


148      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

where  men  and  women  can  make  each  other's  acquaint- 
ance. Anybody  who  can  present  two  references  can 
belong  to  this  club.  A  man  writes  asking  to  be  made  a 
member  (I  also  wrote,  from  mere  curiosity)  and  receives 
a  letter  from  the  chaperon  saying:  "Yon  must  know 
that  thousands  in  Chicago  are  interested  in  our  club. 
...  In  your  own  vicinity,  perhaps  in  your  own  street, 
alongside  your  house,  there  are  persons  who  are  very 
desirous  of  becoming  acquainted  with  a  person  just  like 
you " 

Just  imagine  this  free  matrimonial  agency.  Hearts  at 
public  auction,  in  the  market  of  Chicago,  just  like  bacon, 
carpets  and  pajamas.  It's  no  wonder  that  divorce  is  the 
immediate  result.  And  this  same  daily  publishes  car- 
toons—about which  I  have  written  to  you  before— de- 
scribing the  tortures  of  married  life — for  the  husband, 
you  understand. 

In  New  York  a  paper  is  published  called  The  Matri- 
monial News,  whose  sub-title  is  "Cupid's  Advertiser." 
The  following  is  one  of  its  editorials:  "This  society  is 
organized  and  incorporated  by  philanthropic  people, 
having  broad  and  humanitarian  ideals,  for  the  purpose 
of  obviating  the  bad  social  and  economic  conditions  that 
are  an  obstacle  to  matrimony  in  New  York  and  the 
United  States  in  general.  ...  No  matter  how  fastidious 
you  may  be,  we  feel  confident  that  sooner  or  later 
amongst  the  many  thousands  of  members  you  will  be 
able  to  find  the  ideal  companion  you  are  seeking."  This 
paper  publishes  more  than  a  hundred  advertisements 
all  sent  by  Cupid.    Here  is  a  sample : 

"Here  is  just  the  sweet  little  miss  you  have  been 
looking  for.    Her  age  is  20  summers;  weight  140  lbs.; 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  149 

height,  5  ft.  4  ins. :  dark  hair,  blue  eyes,  rosy  complexion ; 
mild  disposition;  American;  income  of  nine  thousand 
dollars  a  year;  college  education;  enjoys  good  health; 
neat  and  tidy  appearance;  plays  the  piano  and  sings; 
has  property  worth  $130,000 ;  never  married  and  no  one 
dependent  upon  her.  No  objection  to  a  poor  man  if 
honorable  and  a  good  worker.  "Would  like  to  marry  an 
honorable  farmer  and  live  in  the  country.  Will  marry 
at  an  early  date.  Write  and  get  acquainted  before  it  is 
too  late." 

Many  of  the  men  and  women  who  advertise  even  pub- 
lish their  photographs.  If  what  some  of  the  young 
ladies  say  in  their  "ads"  is  true,  I  ought  to  divorce  my- 
self from  you  and  ask  their  hand  in  marriage. 

In  this  country  the  sanctity  of  marriage  and  of  the 
family  is  not  understood.  People  here  would  not  under- 
stand our  conception  of  home.  We  ought  to  thank  God 
that  we  were  not  born  here. 

I  have  read  a  novel  by  Ernest  Poole  which  studies 
family  life  in  this  country.  This  novel  seems  to  me 
sufficiently  authorized  and  representative,  since  the 
School  of  Journalism  of  Columbia  University  has  given 
it  the  first  prize,  in  accordance  with  the  donation  made 
by  Joseph  Pulitzer,  by  declaring  it  the  novel  that  pic- 
tures best  "American  life." 

It  is  the  story  of  a  New  York  widower  of  a  well-to-do 
family,  with  three  daughters,  each  living  a  different 
life.  One  of  these  daughters  is  Laura,  who,  like  every 
American  woman,  goes  out  alone  and  comes  home  late 
at  night  after  having  gone  to  balls  and  theaters  with 
persons  whom  her  father  does  not  even  know. 

The  following  is  a  scene  between  father  and  daughter : 

She — "Do  you  remember  Harold  Sloane?" 
Be— "No." 


150      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

ghe-j'l  Want  you  to  know  him.  I  am  going  to 
marry  him." 

This  is  the  way  in  which  the  father  found  out  that 
his  daughter  was  going  to  be  married.  A  few  months 
pass.  One  day  Laura  visits  her  father 's  house  and  has 
the  following  conversation  with  her  sister,  Deborah: 

Laurar— "This  time  it's  divorce.  I've  stood  it  long 
enough." 

Deborah— "You  mean  you  don't  care  for  your  hus- 
band f  You  want  a  divorce — but  how  do  you  think  you 
are  going  to  get  it?  The  laws  are  rather  strict  in  this 
state.  One  ground  only  is  acceptable,  and  even  if  your 
husband  has  been  unfaithful,  have  you  any  proofs?" 

Laura— "No,  I  haven't— but  I  don't  need  any  proofs. 
He  wants  it  as  badly  as  I  do. ' p 

Deborah — "  Your  husband  is  to  bring  suit  against  you? 
For  God's  sake,  Laura,  what  do  you  mean?" 

Laura — "Mean?  I  mean  that  he  has  proofs!  He  has 
used  a  detective— the  mean  little  cur— and  he's  treating 
me  like  the  dirt  under  his  feet !  Just  as  though  it  were 
one  thing  for  a  man  and  quite  another  for  a  woman! 
He  even  had  the  nerve  to  be  mad,  to  get  on  a  high  horse, 
to  call  me  names !    Turn  me — turn  me  out  on  the  street ! ' ' 

Deborah— "Stop,  this  minute!  You  say  that  you've 
been  doing — what  he  has?" 

Laura—1 '  Why  shoudn  't  I  ?  What  do  you  know  about 
it?     Are  you  going  to  turn  against  me,  too?" 

Deborah— "Perhaps  I  am.  Speak  clearly.  Explain 
yourself." 

Laura—" Explain— to  you?  How  can  I?  You  don  t 
understand— you  know  nothing  about  it— all  you  know 
about  is  books.  You're  simply  a  nun  when  it  comes  to 
this.  I  see  it  now— I  didn't  before— I  thought  you  a 
modern  woman — with  your  mind  open  to  new  ideas. 
.  .  .  You're  afraid." 

Deborah— "Yes,  I'm  afraid." 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  151 

Laura — "And,  being  afraid,  you  can't  be  fair.  You're 
like  nearly  all  American  women — married  or  single, 
young  or  old — you're  all  of  you  scared  to  death  about 
sex — just  as  your  Puritan  mothers  were!  .  .  .  But  I'm 
not  afraid  and  I  'm  living  my  life !  And  let  me  tell  you 
I  'm  not  alone !  There  are  hundreds  and  thousands  doing 
the  same — right  here  in  New  York  City  to-night.  It's 
been  so  abroad  for  years  and  years — in  Rome  and  Berlin, 
in  Paris  and  London — and  now,  thank  God,  it  has  come 
over  here !    If  our  husbands  can  do  it,  why  can 't  we  f ' ' 


Deborah— "Who's  the  man?     That  Italian?" 
Laura — "Yes." 
Deborah— "Where  is  he?" 
Laura — "Eight  here  in  New  York." 
Deborah — "Does  he  mean  to  stand  by  you?" 
Laura — "Of  course  he  does." 
Deborah — "Will  he  marry  you,  Laura?" 
Laura — "Yes,  he  will — the  minute  I'm  free  from  my 
beast  of  a  husband!" 


And  that's  just  what  happened.  Laura  got  a  divorce 
from  her  first  husband  and  married  the  Italian. 

This  is  the  philosophy  of  marriage  in  the  United 
States.  This  is  a  trait  of  the  American  family's  in- 
feriority. In  the  whole  scale  of  life  the  offspring  de- 
pend longer  and  longer  on  the  parents,  in  proportion 
as  the  importance,  complexity  and  refinement  of  the 
species  increases.  In  simple  vegetal  life  plants  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  plants  that  gave  them  life.  The 
wind  draws  out  billions  of  seeds  from  the  pine-trees  and 
the  new  pine-grove  that  is  born  in  the  ruggqd  forest 
knows  nothing  of  its  parents  in  a  far-away  forest  The 
salmon  comes  out  of  the  sea,  swims  up  the  river,  lays 


152      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

its  eggs,  and  thereafter  knows  and  cares  nothing  about 
the  new  myriad  to  which  it  has  given  life.  The  spar- 
row takes  better  care  of  its  eggs  and  its  little  ones  in 
the  nest,  but  it  leaves  them  alone  as  soon  as  they  know 
how  to  fly.  It  is  a  privilege  of  man  to  keep  his  children 
for  as  long  a  time  as  possible,  and  it  is  his  prerogative 
to  be  at  their  side  so  as  to  insure  their  future  happiness 
till  death.  The  fact  of  a  daughter  making  herself  inde- 
pendent of  her  family  at  fifteen  years  of  age  and  acting 
on  her  own  account,  without  the  advice  and  permission 
of  her  parents,  is  a  step  backwards,  not  a  mark  of  prog- 
ress in  the  record  of  human  life. 

It  is  this  contagion  that  I  am  afraid  of  if  we  insist  in 
admiring  and  imitating  this  country.  Fortunately,  our 
women  seem  to  be  immune  against  such  a  plague. 
Heaven  grant  that  neither  years  nor  centuries  will  be 
able  to  weaken  the  power  of  their  resistance. 


Your  husband  who  adores  you 


No  sooner  had  she  read  this  letter  than  Miss  Jones 
took  up  her  pen  to  answer  it  It  might  well  be  supposed 
that  she  felt  hurt  in  her  womanly  dignity ;  but  she  was 
now  so  accustomed  to  the  contemptuous  observations 
made  in  these  letters  that  she  was  able  to  write  the  reply 
quite  calmly  in  these  words: 

Madam : 

Do  not  think  for  a  moment  that  I  intend  to  comment 
upon  this  letter  from  your  husband  moved  by  the  indig- 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  153 

nation  which  you  probably  think  its  perusal  has  caused 
me  as  an  American  woman.  No.  I  am  understanding 
better  and  better  your  husband's  temperament  and  his 
one-sided  criterion  in  judging  of  our  life. 

In  your  country  there  are  no  laws  to  make  divorce 
easy,  except  in  a  very  few  cases,  in  which  the  divorced 
couples  must  not  marry  again.  This  is  a  general  rule 
in  Latin  America  with  a  few  exceptions,  as  in  Uruguay. 
Your  husband,  madam,  has  taken  Cook  County,  where 
the  city  of  Chicago  is,  to  compare  it  with  your  country, 
since  they  both  have  approximately  the  same  population, 
and  invites  you  to  imagine  the  consternation  that  would 
be  caused  in  Chile  by  the  publication  of  the  news  that 
there  had  been  in  one  year  one  hundred  and  twenty-four 
thousand  divorces.  I  also  believe  that  this  would  cause 
great  consternation  in  Chile,  since  of  the  three  million 
and  a  half  persons  who  comprise  the  population  of  your 
country,  according  to  the  last  census,  only  eight  hundred 
and  seventy-one  thousand  are  married.  If  there  were 
as  many  divorces  there  as  in  Cook  County,  in  four  years 
everybody  would  be  divorced,  those  who  got  married 
during  those  four  years  included. 

If  you  begin  to  ask  yourself  why  there  are  so  few  mar- 
ried people  in  Chile,  you  will  arrive  at  the  conclusion, 
not  that  the  people  live  in  a  state  of  sexual  abstinence, 
but  that  relations  between  the  sexes  are  frequent  among 
the  unmarried  in  your  country,  as  in  all  Latin  America. 

I  know  very  well  that  in  your  country,  as  in  almost 
all  Latin  America,  the  uncultured  classes  live  generally 
in  a  sort  of  concubinage,  at  times  permanent,  but  very 
often  transitory.  If  an  account  were  to  be  made  of  the 
different  "wives"  that  the  men  of  Latin  America  have 
had—that  is,  of  voluntary  divorces,  without  the  inter- 


154      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

vention  of  the  law,  without  punishment  or  compensation 
on  the  part  of  the  husband  for  the  abandoned  woman — 
we  should  find  relatively  more  divorces  in  your  country 
than  in  ours. 

The  fundamental  error,  madam,  of  your  husband  is 
that  he  compares  the  high,  cultured  classes  of  your 
country  with  the  figures  of  our  statistics,  which  naturally 
include  our  whole  population.  A  Latin  American  when 
speaking  of  his  country  only  thinks  of  those  of  his  own 
social  class,  without  regarding  the  lower  classes.  The 
following  are  figures  taken  from  statistics,  showing  the 
percentage  of  the  population  that  is  illegitimate  in  some 
Latin  American  countries:  In  Uruguay,  twenty-seven 
per  cent,  of  the  population  is  of  illegitimate  birth;  in 
Chile,  thirty-seven  per  cent.;  in  Venezuela  and  Colom- 
bia, fifty-eight  per  cent.;  in  Ecuador,  seventy-five  per 
cent. ;  and  in  Paraguay,  ninety  per  cent.  In  Bolivia  or 
Peru  conditions  are  similar,  if  not  worse. 

In  order  that  you  may  realize  the  gravity  of  this 
problem  in  your  country,  where  it  is  analogous  to  that 
of  the  other  Latin  American  countries,  I  will  add  that  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  mortality  of  legitimate  children 
is  thirty-one  per  cent,  in  Chile,  the  mortality  of  illegiti- 
mate children  between  birth  and  the  age  of  seven  years 
is  sixty-three  per  cent. 

I  am  not  quoting  these  figures  in  order  to  taunt  Latin 
America,  since  I  know  very  well  that  this  condition  is  a 
consequence  of  several  causes  which  will  gradually  be 
rooted  out;  but  I  write  in  reply  to  that  exclamation  of 
surprise  of  the  Latin  American  who  so  often  sneers  at 
us  because  of  our  divorce  record,  and  who  declares  that 
neither  home  nor  family  exists  here,  and  that  we  do  not 
respect  the  sanctity  of  marriage.     Abandonment,  sub- 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  155 

mission,  and  ignorance  of  women  is  the  normal  condition 
of  the  humble  classes  in  those  countries;  and,  there 
being  practically  no  marriages,  a  large  part  of  the  popu- 
lation lives  in  a  condition  of  free  love,  and  has  not  felt 
the  necessity  of  divorce.  Wait  till  the  women  of  Latin 
America  wake  up,  become  educated,  individualized,  and 
are  born  as  social  units;  and  I  assure  you  they  will 
claim  the  right  to  separate  lawfully  from  the  men  who 
for  one  reason  or  another  humiliate  them  or  treat  them 
like  a  servant  instead  of  as  an  equal. 

Do  you  imagine  for  a  moment,  madam,  that  there  are 
not  among  us  millions  and  millions  of  happy  homes? 
Tell  me,  is  not  the  mere  fact  that  we  have  so  many  facili- 
ties to  get  a  divorce,  that  the  maltreated  and  deceived 
wife  has  an  open  door  for  legal  separation  with  alimony 
from  the  man  who  was  her  husband,  a  guarantee  that 
the  immense  majority  of  married  people  do  live  happily? 
If  in  your  country  they  were  to  print  the  news  of  all 
the  poor  people  who  separate  each  day,  with  the  same 
lack  of  ceremony  with  which  they  became  united,  and  if 
they  were  to  publish  the  causes  of  disagreements,  would 
not  your  husband  also  find  there  a  fountain  of  humor 
typical  of  daily  life?  Real  life  is  sometimes  bitterly 
grotesque.  Our  lists  of  divorces,  made  in  accordance 
with  the  law  and  considered — unduly,  in  my  opinion — 
news  of  public  interest,  are  only  the  counterpart  of  those 
separations  of  people  not  married  by  law  and  not  pub- 
lished in  the  Spanish  American  countries. 

I  must  repeat,  madam,  by  way  of  this  problem  of  di- 
vorce, something  that  I  told  you  in  my  notes  to  the 
previous  letter  of  your  husband.  In  our  country  the 
social  unit  is  the  individual  man  or  woman,  and  in  your 
country  the  social  unit  is  the  family.     Considering  the 


156      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

personality  of  the  individual  among  us,  she  not  only 
expects,  but  in  a  certain  manner  demands  happiness  in 
marriage.  Woman  does  not  sacrifice  herself  so  volun- 
tarily for  the  benefit  of  marriage  although  she  may  do 
it,  and  frequently  does,  for  the  benefit  of  her  children. 
If  a  woman  is  ill  treated  here  she  will  not  put  up  with  it, 
while  in  Latin  countries  she  bears  more  easily  the  con- 
tempt of  her  husband,  and,  yielding,  humbles  herself. 
Nearly  all  our  divorces  are  asked  for  by  the  wife,  who 
claims  her  right  to  happiness  as  her  part  of  life. 

Marriage,  madam,  is  a  contract,  a  sacred  contract, 
without  doubt,  in  which  a  man  and  a  woman  have  prom- 
ised to  unite  their  lives  to  form  a  common  home  before 
God  and  man.  This  contract  being  the  most  serious  one 
in  life,  one  should  think  well  before  making  it,  so  as  to 
run  the  least  danger  possible  of  making  a  mistake.  But 
we  are  human;  we  can  make  a  mistake  in  spite  of  all. 
This  contract  is  often  made  at  an  early  age,  impelled  by 
an  almost  overwhelming  passion.  If  we  make  a  mistake, 
if  we  are  unfortunate  in  our  marriage,  why  should  we 
be  condemned  to  live  a  miserable  life,  a  life  of  tortures  ? 
You  probably  have  seen  around  you  thousands  of  mar- 
ried couples  very  unhappy.  Why  should  those  men  and 
women  suffer  everlasting  torture  through  life? 

From  the  very  beginning  men  understood  that  they 
had  to  guard  against  misfortune  in  marriage ;  but  as  they 
thought  only  of  their  own  happiness,  they  made  laws 
that  to-day  we  consider  fit  only  for  savages.  In  the 
early  days  of  Rome,  as  in  the  beginning  of  almost  all 
society,  the  wife  was  considered  as  the  property  of  the 
husband,  who  bought  or  acquired  her  in  some  other  man- 
ner. He  then  had  the  right  of  life  or  death  over  her; 
and  later  a  law  was  established  which  enacted  that  the 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  157 

husband  could,  instead  of  killing  her,  divorce  himself 
when  he  became  tired  of  her  company.  In  ancient 
Rome  laws  were  passed  which  permitted  the  husband  to 
divorce  his  wife  if  the  latter  went  out  without  a  veil  or 
spoke  to  a  woman  of  inferior  rank  in  the  street. 

In  the  evolution,  through  the  centuries,  of  laws  regard- 
ing divorce  we  always  feel  the  weight  of  tradition  and  of 
ecclesiastical  and  dogmatic  influence.  In  this  respect 
to-day  complete  anarchy  reigns  in  the  entire  world 
among  the  most  civilized  nations,  and  in  this  chaos  are 
degrees  of  confused  legislation  going  from  absolute  pro- 
hibition of  divorce  to  divorce  granted  by  the  simple  mu- 
tual desire  of  both  parties,  without  the  law  entering 
and  studying  the  reasons,  as  in  Norway.  You  admit 
separation  in  South  America,  but  in  such  expressive  and 
determined  conditions  that  almost  make  it  impossible, 
since  you  absolutely  debar  the  divorced  pair  from  mar- 
rying again.  You,  as  I  gather  from  your  husband's 
letters,  are  very  happy  in  your  home ;  but  if  a  woman 
has  been  unfortunate  enough  to  marry  a  libertine  or  a 
drunkard,  believing  him  to  be  an  honorable  man,  why 
should  she  not  get  a  divorce?  And  why  should  she 
refuse  to  be  happy  later  on  with  a  good  man  whom  she 
loves  and  who  understands  her?  This  seems  strange  in 
your  country;  it  is  even  more  so  in  other  parts,  where 
they  think  that  a  widow  or  widower  cannot  marry  again 
without  making  themselves  guilty  of  posthumous  bigamy. 
For  those  who  think  in  that  way,  our  President  Wilson 
and  our  ex-President  Roosevelt  would  be  posthumous 
bigamists. 

The  world  is  traveling,  madam,  along  a  road  of  en- 
deavor to  contrive  more  and  more  ways  of  making  more 
and  more  individuals  happy.     France  is  a  very  Latin 


158      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

country,  even  more  so  than  Latin  America,  and  it  per- 
mits divorce  with  the  right  on  the  part  of  the  divorced 
pair  to  marry  again.  Spanish  America  will,  sooner  or 
later,  have  to  follow  the  same  course  as  these  countries 
that  do  not  believe  that  marriage  has  to  be  a  rigorous 
lottery,,  without  appeal,  in  which  a  number  drawn  must 
either  win  a  prize  or  lose  once  and  for  all. 

The  last  word  has  not  been  yet  spoken  in  the  world 
as  regards  definite  laws  for  divorce.  My  country  par- 
ticularly in  this  respect  is  a  laboratory  for  social  ex- 
perimentation. I  know  that  we  are  far,  very  far,  from 
having  solved  the  problem.  But  efforts  of  every  char- 
acter are  being  made  to  solve  it.  Our  Courts  of  Do- 
mestic Relations  are  an  attempt  of  the  State  to  intervene 
in  the  home,  by  the  request  of  one  of  the  parties,  with 
the  purpose  of  insuring  as  far  as  possible  happiness  in 
marriage.  Some  States,  like  Minnesota,  have  under- 
taken to  teach  the  men  how  to  proceed  in  order  to  guar- 
antee the  maximum  of  happiness  in  the  home.  The  State 
Board  of  Health  publishes  pamphlets  and  issues  propa- 
ganda with  the  purpose  of  avoiding  hasty  marriages, 
entered  into  blindly;  it  cautions  the  married  couple 
against  the  errors  they  may  commit  when  marrying  if 
they  do  not  know  thoroughly  well  the  character  of  their 
future  life  companion;  and  then  it  teaches  how  to  live 
the  life  of  married  people.  New  experiments  and  ideas 
are  being  proposed  and  being  brought  into  use  con- 
stantly. I  myself  do  not  know  what  to  anticipate  as 
regards  the  future  of  this  problem ;  but  I  do  know  that 
our  ideal  is  to  have  the  most  complete  happiness  reign 
within  the  home,  both  for  the  wife  and  the  husband. 
Our  aspiration  is  to  be  happy,  in  the  enjoyment  of  free- 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  159 

dom,  with  purity  and  honor,  not  as  the  canary  in  the 
cage,  but  as  the  dove  under  the  eaves. 

In  the  novel  by  Ernest  Poole,  to  which  your  husband 
refers,  the  author  describes  three  different  women  as 
types  of  American  womanhood.  Laura  is  one,  Deborah 
is  another,  and  Judith  is  the  third.  Why  does  your 
husband  choose  Laura  as  the  type  of  our  womanhood? 
Why  not  Judith,  who  condemns  Laura  blindly,  or  De- 
borah, of  such  a  different  temperament  ?  The  case  pre- 
sented by  Laura  is  generally  one  of  the  big  cities,  often, 
as  here,  of  a  woman  who  has  traveled  through  Europe 
and  has  been  contaminated  by  certain  currents  of  opinion 
in  the  great  cities  of  Rome,  Paris,  Vienna  and  Berlin. 
And  what  of  Judith,  the  self-denying  mother?  And 
Deborah,  the  woman  of  a  collective  spirit,  the  mother  of 
thousands  of  children,  the  social  reformer? 

Judith,  when  she  knew  the  whole  truth,  was  filled 
with  indignation,  and  said  to  her  father  that  she  could 
not  understand  how  he  could  tolerate  the  return  of 
Laura  dishonored  to  his  roof,  where  she,  Judith,  now  a 
widow,  lived  with  her  children,  whom  Laura  would  con- 
taminate by  her  bad  example.  Judith  is  the  opposite 
type  to  Laura,  unchangeable  in  her  puritanism.  And 
Deborah,  the  broad-minded  woman,  full  of  lovingkind- 
ness,  sublime  in  her  aspirations,  indulgent  to  the  weak- 
ness of  others,  always  more  disposed  to  relieve  the  pain 
than  to  reprove  the  transgression,  a  devoted  wife  and 
mother,  and  with  a  soul  so  big  that  her  goodness  fills  the 
home  and  flows  over  beyond  its  limits ;  this  is  the  woman 
prototype  of  my  country ;  this  is  the  new  woman  who  is 
the  symbol  of  feminism  in  my  motherland. 

But  even  taking  this  one  case — that  of  Laura — it  is  a 
fact  that  a  new  philosophy  is  making  its  way  in  my 


160      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

country.  Purity  for  both  sexes.  Fidelity  in  both  sexes. 
I  believe  that  the  present  complexity  of  our  sexual  life 
aims  at  this. 

And,  of  course,  it  is  true  that  the  women  do  not  de- 
pend so  much  in  my  country,  as  in  Latin  America,  on 
the  opinion  of  their  parents  to  choose  their  life  com- 
panions. Woman  is,  without  doubt,  more  independent 
here.  She  thinks  more  for  herself  of  the  problems 
that  are  going  to  affect  her  directly.  Cases  do  not 
occur  here  of  a  woman  who  loves  a  man  and  who  is 
forced  by  her  parents  (who  have  no  fault  to  find  with 
the  man  she  loves)  to  marry  another  whom  she  does 
not  love,  or  simply  prevent  her  from  marrying  the  man 
she  loves.  Woman,  among  us,  is  more  master  of  her- 
self. 

Woman  and  man  are  adults  before  the  law  in  my 
country  earlier  than  in  yours.  And  this  is  not  a  proof 
of  inferiority,  as  your  husband  believes,  in  the  com- 
parison that  he  makes  with  vegetal  and  animal  life; 
it  is  a  proof  simply  that  the  schools  and  life  in  my 
country  prepare  the  child  more  rapidly  for  his  own  in- 
dividual action.  In  every  line  of  action  you  will  al- 
ways see  young  men  here  at  the  head  of  grave  respon- 
sibilities. The  people  live  faster  here.  The  mind 
awakens  earlier ;  individualities  are  respected  even  in  in- 
fancy. The  son  does  not  necessarily  believe  in  the  same 
religion  nor  must  he  have  the  same  political  creed  as 
the  father.  Take,  for  example,  a  High  School  in  the 
United  States  and  a  College  or  High  School  in  your 
country;  here  the  student  can  select  the  studies  that  he 
likes  to  complete  his  course ;  he  has  a  service  a  la  carte 
for  his  tastes  and  inclinations ;  in  your  country  he  is  sub- 
mitted to  a  determined  discipline,  to  a  fixed  program, 


MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE  161 

to  certain  exact  branches,  with  general  rules  for  all, 
whether  they  meet  or  not  the  tendencies,  the  tempera- 
ment, of  each  child. 

Although  it  is  true  that  the  interference  of  parents 
can  contribute  very  often  to  the  happiness  of  their 
children,  it  is  no  less  true  that  it  may  often  be  the 
cause  of  misfortune.  The  son  does  not  necessarily  have 
to  be  a  faithful  reproduction  of  the  father ;  nature  en- 
dows him  with  his  own  idiosyncrasy.  There  is  variety 
in  the  species,  and  the  more  so  when  the  species  is 
more  perfect.  There  never  can  be  such  marked  differ- 
ences between  two  moles  or  two  sparrows  as  between 
two  men. 

The  only  way  the  world  can  advance,  madam,  is  to 
respect  the  individualities  of  children.  To  mold  each 
child  to  the  temperament,  tendency,  and  philosophy  of 
the  father  is  to  perpetuate  the  immobility  of  the  human 
race.  The  son  will  be  the  same  as  the  father,  the 
grandfather,  and  the  great-grandfather,  and  his  chil- 
dren, grandchildren,  and  great-grandchildren  will  be 
the  same  as  he. 

For  the  sake  of  this  respect  for  the  individuality 
of  the  child,  madam,  we,  with  not  less  affection  for 
our  children,  submit  to  their  criterion  their  own  prob- 
lems as  soon  as  they  are  capable  of  making  their  own 
resolutions. 

Before  concluding  I  wish,  madam,  to  insist  emphatic- 
ally that  I  believe  that  the  woman  of  your  country, 
taking  her  as  a  whole,  high  class  and  low  class,  is 
exceptionally  chaste,  and  I  know  very  well  that  the 
figures  of  illegitimate  births  that  the  statistics  give  re- 
flect upon  only  a  special  philosophy  of  the  lower  classes, 


162     THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

that  do  not  give  to  the  marriage  act  itself,  civil  or 
religious,  the  importance  that  it  has  in  your  mind  and 
mylnind. 

With  kind  regards, 

A  Friend  of  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RELIGION 

THIS  time  three  weeks  passed  without  the  Chicago 
correspondent  writing  to  his  wife.  Miss  Jones 
supposed  that  the  Chilean  was  now  ready  to 
return  home,  and  that  this  correspondence  was  there- 
fore finished,  when,  one  morning,  the  following  letter 
took  her  by  surprise : 

Chicago,  111.,  ..........1918. 

My  dearest: 


Some  one  has  said  that  there  are  one  hundred  re- 
ligions in  this  country,  and  only  one  sauce,  but,  judging 
from  what  I  have  seen,  there  are  one  hundred  kinds 
of  sauce  and  two  hundred  religions,  amongst  which, 
the  sauces  and  the  religions,  it  is  difficult  to  choose  the 
most  despicable. 

Just  as  mushrooms  in  our  country  shoot  up  over- 
night from  the  ground,  so  religions  sprout  up  here. 
It  is  a  common  thing  for  each  member  of  a  family  of 
five  to  profess  a  different  religion.  The  churches  are 
organized  like  business  houses  to  recruit  their  clients. 
These  Yankees  are  systematizing  heaven,  and  as  in  the 
department  stores,  there  are  bargain  sales  from  time 
to  time,  like  one  recently  offered  by  Billy  Sunday  in 
Chicago,  sales  in  which  the  customer  may  acquire  Jesus 
Christ  at  a  bargain  price,  below  cost. 

163 


164      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

When  I  arrived  in  Chicago  the  coming  of  Billy  Sun- 
day to  this  city  was  being  advertised.  I  must  tell  you, 
since  you  could  not  possibly  know  it,  that  Billy  Sunday 
is  a  religious  orator.  He  formerly  was  a  baseball  player, 
but  as  he  saw  that  there  was  more  money  in  religion 
he  devoted  himself  to  it.  He  made  no  mistake,  since 
he  has  already  earned  half  a  million  dollars  in  his  new 
profession,  to  which  he  has  adapted  the  gestures  of 
his  first  athletic  profession. 

Of  course,  as  soon  as  Billy  Sunday  arrived  in  Chi- 
cago, I  hastened  to  hear  this  prodigy  of  whom  the  news- 
papers had  been  for  months  publishing  columns  and 
columns  of  advance  notices. 

There  is  not  a  theater  in  Chicago,  or  in  the  world, 
which  can  hold  the  crowd  that  Billy  Sunday  attracts; 
consequently,  he  has  to  have  a  special  colosseum  built, 
which  he  calls  a  tabernacle.  On  the  banks  of  the  calm 
waters  of  Lake  Michigan,  like  John  the  Baptist  on  the 
banks  of  the  Jordan,  this  apostle  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury sets  up  his  amphitheater. 

When  I  arrived,  the  immense  colosseum  was  full  of 
women  and  men,  young  and  old,  but  the  greater  part 
women.  How  does  an  orator  succeed  in  bringing  to- 
gether fifteen  thousand  persons  twice  a  day,  and  three 
times  on  Sundays,  for  ten  weeks?  Because  this  is 
what  Billy  Sunday  has  done.  I  think  that  it  is  mainly 
curiosity,  the  same  that  brought  me  there :  the  curiosity 
to  see  the  stupendous  pantomimes  of  this  man.  If 
it  is  advertised  here  that  a  man  will  eat  a  live  rattle- 
snake, the  masses  are  always  ready  to  go  and  see  it 
done.  And  so  behold  me  on  my  way  to  see  the  king 
of  grotesque  pantomime. 

When  I  took  my  seat,  Billy  Sunday  had  not  yet  com- 


RELIGION  165 

menced  to  speak;  his  secretary  was  speaking.  This 
gentleman  was  showing  the  crowd  how  to  cough  with- 
out making  a  noise;  he  was  telling  the  public  that 
nobody  should  leave  immediately  at  the  end  of  the 
ceremony,  during  the  conversion,  and  finally  he  said 
that  everybody  ought  to  contribute  towards  the  ex- 
penses of  this  great  religious  campaign.  Then  came 
the  collection,  because  this  ceremony  is  payable  in  ad- 
vance: hundreds  of  plates  are  suddenly  passed  around 
the  whole  tabernacle ;  in  each  row  a  plate  is  passed  from 
person  to  person  as  each  one  puts  in  his  obolus.  The 
plates  emerge  in  the  aisles  of  the  tabernacle,  and  thence, 
in  a  mighty  stream,  the  contributions  flow  into  the 
financial  department,  where  the  total  is  figured. 

While  the  secretary  speaks,  Billy  Sunday  is  seated  on 
the  platform  rubbing  his  neck.  I  have  read  that  this 
great  orator  has  a  professional  massagist  for  his  throat, 
but,  evidently,  he  has  to  supplement  the  work  of  the 
doctor  who  takes  care  of  his  oratory  muscles. 

Small,  agile,  of  a  penetrating  look,  he  has  not,  how- 
ever, a  physiognomy  revealing  any  very  remarkable 
ability.  Seen  in  the  street,  without  knowing  who  he 
is,  he  could  be  taken  for  a  hair-dresser,  an  umbrella 
seller,  or  an  insurance  agent.  Besides,  his  manners, 
while  seated  before  the  public,  are  coarse.  Between 
hiccoughs,  he  scratches  his  feet,  chews  paper,  and  rest- 
lessly scrutinizes  the  audience.  In  his  movements  he 
resembles  a  monkey  in  a  zoological  garden.  I  regarded 
him  with  amazement  and  understood  that  only  a  public 
like  the  Yankee  would  tolerate  such  a  bounder  as  a 
teacher  of  ethics.  In  our  country  lynching  would  break 
out  spontaneously  to  punish  the  audacious  impertinence ; 
but  I  ceased  to  wonder  when  I  remembered  that  I  was 


166      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

in  the  United  States,  the  country  of  grotesque  vaude- 
villes. 

In  his  language  he  is  irreverent.  He  speaks  of  Jesus 
Christ  with  such  familiarity,  that  it  seems  as  if  they  had 
been  college  chums.  He  treats  biblical  characters  as 
if*  he  had  loaned  them  all  money  and  they  had  not 
yet  paid  him  back.  He  calls  Joseph  Joe,  he  calls 
Job  Jake.  As  for  him,  he  compares  himself  with  the 
greatest  personages  of  history  with  an  arrogance  truly 
Yankee.  He  says,  for  example:  u Napoleon  used  to 
sleep  four  hours,  I  sleep  less  than  he."  He  puts  himself 
on  a  level  with  Lincoln  and  Washington. 

But  his  language  is  nothing,  his  eloquence  and  his 
arrogance  are  nothing  when  compared  with  his  panto- 
mimes. For  this  he  has  not  and  never  will  have  an 
equal  in  the  world.  He  jumps,  shouts,  shrieks,  twists 
and  spits.  A  great  stunt  of  a  tenor  is  to  bring  out 
a  beautiful  high  C ;  a  great  stunt  of  Billy  Sunday  is 
to  take  off  his  jacket  in  the  middle  of  his  excitement 
and  throw  it  at  the  audience,  or  to  take  a  chair  and 
break  it  in  pieces  on  the  platform.  This  seems  un- 
believable, gross  exaggeration,  but  by  this  time  you 
probably  have  accustomed  yourself  to  believe  that  noth- 
ing is  impossible  when  treating  of  this  country. 

And  then  comes  the  imposing  final.  The  call  for 
people  to  be  converted.  Then  Billy  Sunday  speaks  in 
the  voice  of  an  afflicted  woman,  he  cries  like  a  Magdalen, 
and  the  chorus  of  thousands  of  women  invites  the  mul- 
titude to  approach  and  shake  the  hand  of  the  Savior, 
to  approach  and  commune  with  Jesus  Christ.  A  pro- 
cession begins.  That  moment  is  truly  imposing,  be- 
cause men  and  women,  really  possessed  of  holy^  faith, 
approach  with  frightened  eyes,  some   almost  lifeless, 


RELIGION  167 

others  in  hysteria.  It  is  a  moment  of  collective  hyp- 
notism. Billy  Sunday  is  a  past  master  in  understand- 
ing the  psychology  of  the  masses.  You  know  that  at 
the  circus,  when  a  man  of  the  troupe  stands  at  the 
entrance  to  announce  the  wonders  inside,  he  selects  the 
moment  of  the  climax  of  his  eloquence  to  say:  "Now 
enter,  but  do  not  rush,  there 's  room  for  all,  do  not 
rush,"  and  a  crowd  composed  of  the  very  employees  of 
the  company  is  behind  the  public  pushing  the  people 
to  make  way.  The  public  does  not  know  that  they  are 
employees  of  the  company,  but  believes  them  to  be  part 
of  the  crowd  that  is  rushing  to  get  in,  and  it  is  dragged 
along.  The  people  buy  their  tickets  and  go  in.  The 
public  is  hypnotized.  Everybody  goes  in.  In  the  same 
way  Billy  Sunday,  with  hundreds  of  drilled  agents, 
speeds  up  conversion. 

Well,  this  extraordinary  man  has  converted  fifty 
thousand  persons  in  Chicago  in  his  campaign.  He  has 
saved  fifty  thousand  souls.  One  of  his  admirers  says 
that  the  salvation  of  these  fifty  thousand  souls  has 
cost  Chicago  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  As  every- 
thing here  is  reduced  to  numbers,  it  has  been  figured 
that  the  salvation  of  each  soul  has  cost  four  dollars, 
and  as  this  means  eternal  happiness  for  the  other  life, 
it  is  impossible  to  compute  what  infinitesimal  fraction 
of  a  cent  each  century  of  happiness  for  each  saved 
person  costs. 

I  have  spoken  to  you  so  much  in  detail  of  Billy  Sun- 
day because  he  is  the  most  popular  religious  personage 
in  the  United  States,  he  is  more  popular  than  the  kaiser 
in  Germany  or  the  devil  in  hell.  He  is  the  supreme 
clown  of  the  world.  But  don't  think  he  is  the  only 
one. 


168      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

There  is  another  religions  sect  here  which  is  enjoy- 
ing an  extraordinary  vogne  and  which  is  advancing 
with  unbelievable  rapidity.  It  is  called  Christian 
Science.  It  owns  in  Boston  one  of  the  most  imposing 
churches  in  the  country  and  publishes  there  a  daily 
newspaper  which  has  gained  great  renown  in  the  whole 
republic.  The  headstone  of  this  church  is  the  belief 
that  man  can  and  should  cure  his  own  ailments  with- 
out the  aid  of  doctors  or  medicines,  that  is  to  say,  by 
the  exercise  of  his  own  will. 

The  Mormons,  whose  religion  permits  men  to  have  ^^ 
several  wives,  still  exist.  Although  not  long  agoJF 
polygamy  was  prohibited  by  law,  Mormonism  still  flour- 
ishes and  it  has  thousands  of  missionaries  and  priests 
spreading  their  faith.  I  have  spoken  here  with  men 
and  women  who  are  Mormons  and  who  defend  their 
doctrines  most  vigorously.  The  death  was  announced 
not  long  ago  of  Joseph  Fielding  Smith,  President  of 
the  Mormon  Church,  or,  as  they  call  it:  the  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ  of  the  Latter  Day  Saints.  They  have  four 
hundred  thousand  adepts.  In  the  Reverend  Mr.  Smith,  % 
as  head  of  the  church,  was  invested  the  authority  of  his 
uncle,  Joseph  Smith,  the  original  Mormon  prophet. 
This  prophet  had  five  wives  and  forty-three  children. 
Only  since  1890  is  polygamy  illegal  all  over  the  United 
States;  but  the  prophet  Smith  insisted  to  the  last  that 
he  could  not  abandon  his  numerous  sons   and  wives. 

It  would  be  a  hopeless  task  to  try  to  make  here  even 
the  most  superficial  mention  of  the  one  hundred  and 
eighty-six  denominations  that  flourish  in  this  country, 
according  to  statistics.  There  are  religions  for  all  tastes, 
and  if  a  person  does  not  agree  with  any  of  them,  he 
just  founds  a  new  one.     These  people  believe  that  re- 


RELIGION  169 

ligions  are  like  eggs,  to  be  served  in  any  way,  soft  boiled, 
fried,  scrambled,  as  an  omelet  or  in  cocktails,  and  to  be 
mixed  with  anything,  say,  with,  tomatoes,  asparagus  or 
red  pepper,  according  to  the  taste  and  fancy  of  the 
consumer. 

Of  course,  our  religion,  Catholicism  is  ever  gaining 
more  and  more  new  adepts  here  and  counts  to-day 
more  than  seventeen  million  souls.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  it  is  the  denomination  that  has  the  largest  number 
of  adepts  in  the  United  States.  Catholics  here  own 
fifteen  thousand  four  hundred  and  twenty-seven 
churches.  The  second  most  numerous  denomination  is 
that  of  the  Methodists,  with  seven  million  three  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  thousand  members.  I  believe  that  the 
day  is  still  far  off  when  Catholicism  will  be  the  only  re- 
ligion professed  in  this  country.  Moreover,  I  think  it 
really  is  a  serious  matter  that  these  dissenting  religions 
are  carrying  on  an  immense  work  of  propaganda  in  our 
countries,  and  that  in  our  own  Chile  they  have  founded 
schools  and  churches  that  threaten  our  national  faith. 
They  are  collecting  here  more  and  more  money  to  ex- 
tend their  creeds  to  our  countries.  What  have  they 
got  to  do  with  our  beliefs  ?  This  propaganda  makes  for 
disorder  and  the  annihilation  of  our  national  soul,  it 
is  an  offense  against  the  conscience  of  our  countries. 

A  nation  with  one  hundred  and  forty  Christian  re- 
ligions (without  counting  the  non-Christian  religions 
which  also  abound)  cannot  have  any  unity  of  sentiment, 
and  threatens  us  with  this  Babel  of  souls.  Who  is  going 
to  free  us  from  the  danger  of  such  an  invasion  by  these 
exiles  of  God?  The  Yankee  peril  for  our  Latin  coun- 
tries is  not  only  military,  not  only  political  and  not 
only  commercial ;  it  is  also  religious.    Pray  to  God,  my 


170      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

wife,  with  all  the  saintly  faith  of  a  Christian  woman, 
that  our  country  be  saved  from  the  modern  barbarians 
of  the  North. 


Your  husband  who  adores  you. 


Miss  Jones  was  a  Christian  woman  who  revered  the 
liberty  of  conscience.  The  Chicago  correspondent's  nar- 
row-mindedness surprised  her  not  at  all;  she  knew 
that  there  were  fanatical  Roman  Catholics  in  Latin 
America,  who  looked  upon  all  Protestants  as  heretics, 
and  she  had  found  there  great  numbers  of  skeptics  who 
scouted  the  belief  in  any  religion;  but  she  also  recog- 
nized that  a  spirit  of  tolerance  was  very  hard  to  find. 
Certain  of  her  ground,  she  replied  to  this  letter  thus: 

Madam : 

In  the  problem  of  religion,  the  capital  difference 
between  your  country,  between  Latin  America  in  gen- 
eral, and  the  United  States,  is  that  over  there  there 
is  a  state  religion  and  in  my  country  there  is  no  state 
religion ;  over  there  there  is  a  religion  that  can  be  called 
the  only  one,  and  in  my  country  there  are  many  re- 
ligions. Roman  Catholicism  is  the  religion  of  Latin 
America;  Roman  Catholicism  is  also  one  of  the  re- 
ligions of  my  country,  but  many  Americans  profess 
other  denominations  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  even 
other  religions  not  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

Our  country  having  been  founded  by  men  who  fled 
from  the  religious  persecutions  of  old  Europe,  it  was 
only  logical  that  one  of  the  headstones  of  our  national 


RELIGION  171 

organization  should  be  absolute  liberty  of  conscience. 
On  the  other  hand,  Latin  America  was  conquered  by  an 
intolerant  Spain,  not  by  persecuted  men,  but  by  per- 
secutors who  brought  the  Inquisition  to  the  New  World. 
This  is  the  historical  cause  of  this  capital  divergence. 

The  state  could  not,  among  us,  take  over  the  right 
of  prescribing  a  determined  religion  to  its  citizens;  it 
could  not,  with  the  funds  of  the  nation,  support  the 
apostles  of  a  single  religion.  This  will  never  happen  in 
my  country.  There  is  a  modern  tendency  to  have  the 
state  take  over  many  services  of  public  utility,  such 
as  railroads,  steamships,  telephones  and  telegraphs;  but 
it  will  never  come  to  pass  that  the  state  will  take  over 
religion,  as  happens  in  your  countries  where  the  priests 
are  paid  out  of  the  national  budget. 

Madam,  religion  is  a  matter  of  the  individual  con- 
science of  every  person.  To  impose  a  religion  on  a 
person  is  like  forcing  a  mask  on  his  face;  that  person 
does  not  profess  that  religion  if  he  does  not  feel  it, 
if  he  does  not  believe  in  it,  if  he  does  not  understand 
it  or  if  he  does  not  accept  it  with  all  sincerity.  In  fact, 
in  our  country  there  is  absolute  liberty  of  conscience; 
in  Latin  America,  sometimes  openly,  but  often  secretly, 
there  exists  the  imposition  of  a  determined  belief.  With 
the  taxes  and  contributions  that  a  Protestant  pays,  a 
church  that  he  does  not  believe  in  is  supported.  I 
mention  this  point,  madam,  because  it  marks  a  capital 
difference  in  the  sincerity  and  intensity  of  religious  sen- 
timent. I  believe  that  as  a  consequence  of  this,  in  part, 
in  my  country  religious  sentiment  is  more  profound, 
more  sincere  than  in  Latin  America.  Religion  among 
us  has  a  more  decisive  influence  on  our  actions.  Even 
treating  of  Roman  Catholics,  I  submit  that  they  are 


172      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

more  truly  sincere  and  more  deeply  convinced  in  the 
United  States  than  in  Latin  America. 

The  fact  that  in  my  country  different  ways  of  inter- 
preting the  Bible  have  originated  different  denomina- 
tions of  the  Church  of  Christ,  I  believe  has  been  beneficial 
to  religion  itself,  even  though  ultra-radical,  unilateral 
and  in  some  cases,  if  you  like,  dishonest  sects  have  been 
formed  under  the  protecting  shade  of  this  liberty  of 
interpretations.  I  am  not  going  to  speak  to  you  of 
individuals  in  these  notes,  madam;  so  I  am  not  going 
to  answer  your  husband's  long  dissertation  about  the 
Rev.  William  Sunday.  But  I  must  say  that  it  would 
be  wise  to  weigh  very  carefully  what  is  said  against 
a  man  who  has  had  exceptional  success  in  his  career 
or  who  attacks  evils  and  the  interests  allied  with  evils, 
such  as  alcoholism  and  vice,  in  such  an  aggressive  way 
as  that  of  Mr.  Sunday.  Such  a  man  must  have  enemies. 
In  your  mind  look  back  at  history  and  you  will  see  how 
the  fighters  of  all  periods  have  been  persecuted  and 
reviled.  If  Christ  came  back  once  more  into  the  world, 
you  may  be  sure  that  He  would  be  crucified  once  again. 
The  man  whom  I  do  not  envy  is  he  who  never  made  any 
enemies,  he  whose  death  is  mourned  by  all,  even  by  the 
undertaker  who  sells  his  coffin.  Allow  me  at  least  to 
recall  one  fact  with  regard  to  Mr.  Sunday:  when  he 
entered  the  church,  he  left  a  good,  remunerative  position 
to  accept  one  as  secretary  to  a  religious  organization 
which  paid  him  only  seventy-five  dollars  a  month. 

But  as  I  have  told  you,  I  do  not  want  to  discuss 
persons  nor  even  religions.  You  profess  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion  and  I  revere  with  the  most  profound 
respect  your  beliefs.  But  do  not  believe,  madam,  that 
this  diversity  of  religious  creeds,  destroys  national  unity 


RELIGION  173 

among  us,  as  your  husband  fears  it  does,  because  it  is 
in  the  mind  of  everybody  here  to  respect  and  tolerate 
the  creeds  of  others.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that 
we  are  not  confined  to  the  creed  of  one  church  alone  has 
promoted  and  is  still  promoting  a  healthy  rivalry  be- 
tween the  different  sects,  each  doing  its  best  to  carry 
on  a  more  intense  social  work,  and  to  discuss  man 's  prob- 
lems, both  spiritual  and  earthly. 

On  the  other  hand,  madam,  a  religious  monopoly  does 
not  provoke  healthy  competition,  and  what  is  worse, 
as  we  have  seen  in  Latin  America,  it  stimulates  a  certain 
noxious  indolence  towards  the  most  serious  social  prob- 
lems. How  do  you  explain,  madam,  that  the  church 
in  your  country  has  not  undertaken  a  formidable  cam- 
paign against  the  alcoholism  which  is  destroying  your 
people  ?  The  church  there  has  not  arrayed  itself  against 
alcoholism,  but  has  itself  been  and  is  a  manufacturer 
of  wines  for  sale;  that  is  to  say,  the  church  has  its 
economic  interests  allied  with  the  alcoholism  of  the 
people.  "Without  a  religious  monopoly,  this  could  not 
happen.  In  a  small  Latin  American  village,  where  the 
Catholic  priest  leased  for  years  to  a  saloon-keeper  a  plot 
of  ground  adjoining  the  church,  he  was  at  once  dis- 
possessed when  a  Protestant  pastor  began  his  religious 
work  in  the  same  village.  That  same  j  riest  led  a  licen- 
tious life,  which  was  subjected  to  very  considerable  re- 
straint when  he  saw  that  in  order  to  keep  his  congrega- 
tion he  had  to  preach  not  only  with  words  but  by  exam- 
ple, since  another  rival  priest  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
preached  both  with  words  and  example.  For  the  benefit 
of  Roman  Catholicism  itself,  madam,  there  ought  to  be  in 
Latin  America  the  most  absolute  freedom  of  conscience 
separating  the  state  from  the  church. 


174     TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

A  live  religion,  madam,  is  a  religion  that  battles,  a 
religion  that  does  its  best  to  gain  more  and  more 
adepts,  to  add  more  and  more  souls  to  its  bosom.  Never 
is  a  religion  purer,  never  is  it  healthier,  never  is  it 
stronger  than  when  it  is  fighting  with  the  utmost  ardor. 
The  first  days  of  persecuted  Christianity  were  the  days 
of  its  most  austere  principles,  of  its  most  self-denying 
martyrs.  When  the  struggle  ceases,  moss  commences  to 
grow. 

This  effort  of  dissenting  religions  to  conquer  Latin 
America  is  only  a  proof  of  the  moral  strength  of  these 
creeds  that  are  looking  for  expansion.  Your  husband, 
madam,  should  not  fear  this  entrance  of  new  Christian 
sects  into  your  country.  It  can  already  be  seen  that  they 
have  done  and  are  doing  a  moral  work  of  the  most 
profound  significance.  What  Latin  America  needs  most 
is  education  and  character,  and  our  religious  missions 
are  giving  it  just  that.  A  welcome  should  be  given 
in  Spanish  America  to  this  new  social  force  which, 
at  the  same  time,  will  be  called  upon  to  intensify  and 
purify  the  social  strength  of  ruling  Koman  Catholicism. 
These  evangelists  are  sincere  believers  who  do  things  in 
accordance  with  their  beliefs.  Almost  all  of  them 
are  abstainers  and  lead  a  pure  private  life  that  is  an 
example  for  their  neighbors,  whether  they  profess  an- 
other faith  or  no  faith  at  all. 

One  of  the  causes  of  stagnancy,  madam,  for  a  re- 
ligious denomination  is  the  fact  that  its  apostles  and 
priests  are  supported  by  the  state.  A  religion  sup- 
ported by  the  state  is  a  parasitic  religion,  it  has  no 
life  of  its  own,  it  does  not  need  to  fight,  it  need  not 
be  so  jealous  of  maintaining  its  high  moral  standards. 
The  worst  feature  about  it  is  not  the  injustice  of  taking 


RELIGION  175 

money  from  every  one,  from  the  members  of  different 
creeds  to  support  a  determined  church;  the  worst  of 
it  is  not  that  a  citizen  is  obliged  to  help  support  a 
church  to  which  he  does  not  belong;  the  worst  of  it  is 
that  those  who  do  not  contribute  directly  feel  themselves 
more  widely  separated  from  it.  The  church  should  be 
supported  by  the  voluntary  contributions  of  its  followers, 
by  part  of  their  work,  efforts  and  money.  In  this  way 
there  is  a  greater  bond  of  union  between  the  church 
and  its  parishioners. 

In  my  country  there  is  absolute  separation  between 
church  and  state,  and  our  moral  advancement  and  a 
large  part  of  our  intellectual  progress  are  due  to  religion 
as  it  is  preached  and  practiced  here.  This  school  of 
national  morality  in  this  country  is  the  Church  of 
Christ.  It  is  the  philosophy  of  Christ  that  has  made 
our  democracy.  It  is  the  philosophy  of  Christ  put  into 
practice  by  our  churches  that  has  saved  us  and  will 
save  us  in  all  great  national  crises.  Abolish  suddenly 
the  active  Christian  church  in  our  country  and  you 
may  be  sure  that  we  should  not  conduct  ourselves 
morally,  or  with  justice  and  equity,  towards  the  world 
at  the  end  of  our  present  war.  Of  course  you  will 
agree  with  me,  madam,  that  the  morals,  even  of  those 
who  profess  no  religion,  the  morals  of  skeptics  and  of 
unbelievers,  receive  benefit  from  the  influence  of  believ- 
ers. They  do  not  know  that  they  are  the  product  of  a 
reflex  education.  They  do  not  know  that  the  healthy, 
pure  and  Christian  life  of  believers  is  the  moral  code 
that  they  observe  in  their  very  actions. 

Doubtless,  madam,  there  are  men  who,  without  be- 
ing religious,  do  nevertheless  proceed  in  all  their  human 
acts  in  accordance  with  the  purest  moral  code;  they 


176      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

are  honorable,  truthful,  merciful  and  pure.  Of  these 
men  Latin  America  has  a  large  number,  and  this  is  the 
basis  of  argument  advanced  by  religious  skeptics  to 
explain  their  skepticism.  But  where  have  these  men 
obtained  their  moral  standard?  From  the  Christian 
religion  ruling  in  their  surroundings.  Religion  is  ca- 
pable of  making  those  within  its  bosom  good  and  by- 
extension,  by  reflex  education,  those  not  within  its  bosom. 

I  recall  to  mind,  madam,  that  at  a  scientific  conference 
held  some  years  ago  in  the  University  of  Chile  an 
eminent  Roman  Catholic  priest  said,  in  the  course  of 
his  address  before  a  full  assembly  of  the  members,  that 
there  could  be  no  moral  men  without  religion.  The 
president  of  the  University,  the  venerable  historian 
Don  Diego  Barros  Arana,  an  old  man  of  unblemished 
rectitude  and  morality,  rose  to  his  feet  and  interrupted 
the  Roman  Catholic  speaker  with  glowing  words,  asking 
him  if  he  meant  by  this  that  Francisco  Bilbao,  Guillermo 
Matta  and  many  other  great  Chileans,  all  well  known 
atheists,  were  immoral.  He  cited  his  own  case  as,  that 
of  a  man  without  religious  faith,  and  demanded  to  know 
if  he  also  was  immoral. 

I  do  not  remember  what  answer  was  made  by  the 
priest,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  he  should  have  replied 
that  these  luminaries  of  Chilean  intellectuality  which, 
professed  no  religion  had  acquired  their  austere  rules 
of  conduct  from  the  code  of  moral  ambient  suffused  by 
the  Christian  Church.  It  behooves  us  to  follow  very 
closely  the  way  in  which  the  threads  are  woven  in  the 
warp  of  the  moral  Christian  standard.  A  woman  at- 
tends the  services  of  her  church  every  Sunday.  Her  son, 
her  brother,  her  husband,  her  neighbor,  all  are  indi- 
rectly influenced  by  her  own  moral  force.     It  is  not 


RELIGION  111 

that  she  goes  round  repeating  the  sermons  she  has  heard, 
but  that  these  have  become  dynamic,  and  others  are 
influenced  by  her  example.  Was  not  the  mother  of 
Don  Diego  Barros  Arana  a  sincerely  religious  woman, 
and  was  she  not,  by  her  example,  the  first  moral  teacher 
of  the  future  president  of  the  University? 

A  foreigner  may  come  to  my  country  on  a  visit,  may 
stop  at  a  hotel  and  enjoy  all  the  privileges  of  our  re- 
publican life,  without  incurring  the  obligation  of  going 
to  Europe  to  fight  in  the  defense  of  the  country  which 
has  given  him  hospitality;  he  takes  advantage  of  our 
prosperity  at  the  cost  of  sacrifices  made  by  others.  So 
also  a  skeptic  in  a  Christian  community  is  like  a  for- 
eigner who  lives  sheltered  by  the  moral  ambient  at  the 
cost  of  the  faith  and  devotion  of  others. 

One  of  those  skeptics  told  me  once:  "I  accept  the 
moral  principles  of  the  missionaries  that  you  send  us, 
but  not  the  religion  they  preach.     I  have  no  religion/ ' 

That  is  to  say,  he  is  ready  to  take,  and  does  take 
the  rose  from  the  rose-bush,  but  he  does  not  bother  about 
the  plant,  nor  does  he  fertilize  or  water  the  earth  in 
which  it  grows.  I  would  tell  that  atheist,  all  those 
atheists  and  apostles  of  Latin  American  skepticism  that 
even  though  they  do  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  even 
though  they  consider  Him  a  myth,  they  ought  to  respect 
that  myth  as  the  most  beautiful  and  useful  mystery  of 
the  Christian  faith,  as  the  inspiration  for  the  moral 
code  that  puts  man  above  his  egoistic  interests.  Irre- 
ligious doctrines,  which  have  become  a  serious  disease  in 
Latin  America,  are  destructive,  iconoclast  and  discourag- 
ing, not  offering  anything  in  their  place  for  the  elevation 
of  the  soul. 

And  you  have  probably  noticed,  as  I  have,  to  what  this 


178      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

skepticism  is  due.  Latin  America,  in  spite  of  its  official 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  is  the  one  skeptical  continent 
of  the  world.  How  do  you  explain  that  the  Catholic 
religion  being  official  there,  the  people  so  often  rise 
up  against  its  apostles?  "Why  this  religious  contempt 
among  the  students  of  the  university  and  among  the 
workingmen?  Just  because  religion  is  official,  because 
there  is  no  tolerance  for  different  denominations,  be- 
cause there  is  a  religious  trust.  It  has  been  the  in- 
tolerant spirit  of  Latin  America  that  has  made  it  and  is 
making  it  every  day  more  and  more  skeptical. 

The  fact  that  a  religion  struggles  to  extend  its  faith, 
without  impositions,  but  by  means  of  persuasion,  is  not 
only  natural,  but  plausible.  Every  man  should  try 
to  set  for  himself  the  highest  moral  standard  and  exert 
himself  to  extend  that  moral  standard  to  others.  Man 
is  not  instinctively  good.  It  is  the  ascending  advance  of 
civilization  that  makes  him  better.  And  the  most  power- 
ful force  that  is  working  for  the  moral  betterment  of 
man  is  religion.  Eeligion  is  to  the  moral  progress  of 
peoples  what  steam  is  to  the  speed  of  the  locomotive.  But 
in  order  that  this  religion  be  an  impulsive  element  of 
moral  betterment  it  must  be  submitted  to  the  purifying 
forces  of  free  competition,  of  wide  discussion,  which  is 
impossible  under  a  regime  of  monopoly.  Religions  are 
the  courses  of  human  ethics,  and  like  courses  in  physics, 
biology  and  sociology,  they  must  change  continually, 
keeping  step  with  the  progress  of  the  world.  In  olden 
times  medicine  did  not  advance  because  the  study  of 
anatomy,  autopsy  and  the  analysis  of  the  human  body 
with  the  scalpel  of  science  was  considered  sacrilegious. 
Neither  can  progress  be  made  in  religion  if  it  is  divorced 
from  analysis,  from  a  critical  spirit  or  from  free  dis- 


RELIGION  179 

cussion  or  if  it  is  left  locked  up  in  bell-glasses.  There 
can  be  no  moral  advance  in  a  country  where  the  national 
course  in  ethics,  religion,  is  stagnant  and  governed  by 
laws  that  are  imposed  on  the  people,  that  cannot  be  dis- 
cussed. That  is  happening  in  Latin  America  and  is 
not  happening  in  my  country. 

Religious  tolerance,  madam,  is,  in  my  conception,  one 
of  the  most  pressing  necessities  of  Latin  America.  It 
is  necessary  that  men  of  all  political  parties  should 
understand  this  and  that  the  Eoman  Catholics,  who 
have  a  religious  monopoly  in  those  countries,  should  un- 
derstand it,  too.  With  the  adoption  of  religious  toler- 
ance the  very  Roman  Catholic  religion  will  become 
stronger. 

Pardon  me,  madam,  if  I  have  offended  you  by  what 
I  have  said  here ;  but  if  you  will  think  over  the  matter 
well,  you  may  perhaps  find  I  am  right. 

Your  Friend  from  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER   IX 

PROHIBITION 


o 


NE   week  later,   Miss   Jones   received   the   next 
letter  from  the  Chilean  correspondent. 


Chicago,  111., 1918« 

My  dearest: 

I  was  on  my  way  from  New  Orleans,  and  conversing 
in  the  dining-car  with  a  fellow-passenger.  We  were 
drinking  beer.  The  landscape  was  splendid;  the  sky 
of  a  limpid  bine;  birds  were  darting  abont  freely,  with- 
out any  obstacle  in  their  way  to  soar  on  high,  to  fly 
through  the  clouds  in  any  direction. 

The  waiter  approached  and  took  up  our  half -drained 

glasses. 

"Dry  State,"  he  said. 

The  locomotive  was  emitting  its  tuft  of  smoke  in  a  dry 
State.  Neither  champagne,  wine,  beer  nor  anything 
containing  alcohol'  could  be  drunk.  _     > 

Without  doubt  the  birds  flying  through  the  air  m 
perfect  freedom  were  laughing  at  us  through  the  win- 
dows. Man,  the  king  of  animals,  this  privileged ^  being 
the  master  of  earth,  sea  and  sky,  may  not  drink  what 
he  wishes;  he  is  not  the  master  of  his  own  will.  An 
unreasonable  law,  imposed  by  a  group  of  unbalanced 

180 


PROHIBITION  181 

minds  upon  a  meek  and  obedient  multitude,  orders  that 
all  must  abstain  from  drinking  what  the  State  forbids 
them  to  drink. 

In  France,  the  student  of  a  state  college  has  a  glass 
of  wine  with  his  meals,  and  a  patient  in  the  state  hos- 
pital has  also  his  glass  of  wine  at  his  bedside.  In 
Germany  beer  is  as  air  to  the  individual,  but  in  this 
country  of  liberty  man  has  to  submit  to  the  dictatorial 
caprices  of  a  preposterous  law  which  ventures  to  dic- 
tate what  a  man  should  put  into  his  mouth.  Even 
though  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  this  country 
were  against  the  consumption  of  alcoholic  drinks,  I  do 
not  see  why  they  should  want  to  oblige  the  remaining 
third  to  submit  to  their  determined  tastes,  instead 
of  being  themselves  content  to  go  without.  Why  is  not 
the  consumption  of  meat,  cheese  and  butter  prohibited  ? 

There  are  already  many  States,  counties  and  cities  of 
this  country  in  which  the  consumption  of  all  alcoholic 
drinks  is  prohibited.  More  than  sixty  per  cent  of  the 
population  is  already  obliged  to  abstain  from  drinking 
wine  and  beer.  Everything  seems  to  point  that  within 
a  year  the  whole  country  will  be  dry,  since  to  pass  a 
federal  law  only  two-thirds  of  the  votes  of  both  houses 
are  required. 

And  the  prohibitionists,  already  delighted  with  the 
triumphs  which  they  foresee,  announce  that  they  will 
soon  start  a  campaign  against  nicotine,  cigars  and 
cigarettes.  There  are  many  people  already  who  seri- 
ously announce  future  campaigns  against  tea  and  coffee. 
They  will  form  the  League  Against  Caffeine  and  Theine. 
A  campaign  against  the  use  of  salt  is  also  to  be  initiated. 

This  is  an  absurdity  that  has  no  name.  It  is  an 
attack  on  the  liberty  of  the  individual  and  an  unjust 


182      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

dispossession  of  all  those  who  have  fortunes  invested 
in  vineyards,  breweries  and  distilleries.  Billions  of 
dollars  will  be  thrown  into  the  street;  vineyard  plan- 
tations will  become  useless,  large  beer  factories  will 
have  to  close  up;  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  will 
be  thrown  out  of  work.  More  than  nine  hundred 
million  dollars — I  have  read — invested  in  business  con- 
nected with  alcohol  will  be  affected  by  the  prohibition 
madness.  And  if  the  whole  country  goes  dry,  which 
without  doubt  is  coming  to  pass,  the  government  will 
lose  each  year  some  five  hundred  millions  from  taxes 
which  it  will  no  longer  receive.  This  is  of  very  little 
importance  to  these  fanatics  dominated  by  the  fixed 
idea  that  alcohol  is  harmful  to  the  health. 

But  this  is  a  lie.  Alcohol  is  only  harmful  when  used 
in  excess.  Everything  is  harmful  when  used  in  excess, 
even  bread,  milk  and  rice.  A  proof  of  the  fallacy  of 
prohibition  argument  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that 
they  do  not  oppose  the  sale  of  alcohol  as  a  medicine. 
A  doctor  can  prescribe  champagne  or  malt  as  a  recon- 
stituent.  You  know  very  well  that  two  bottles  of  stout 
a  day  were  indispensable  for  you  while  you  were  nour- 
ishing each  one  of  our  children.  Beer  is  the  best  milk- 
forming  beverage  known.  Made  of  cereals,  a  producer 
of  heat  and  energy,  it  has  been  fittingly  called  liquid 
bread.  How  many  many  times  we  have  revived  with  a 
little  cognac  persons  who  had  fainted !  How  many  colds 
you  and  I  have  got  rid  of  by  taking  a  glass  of  strong 
whisky  and  hot  water !  Do  you  remember  the  time  when 
your  cousin  Christina  was  between  life  and  death  ?  Don't 
you  remember  that  her  strength  was  kept  up  with  spoon- 
fuls of  champagne?     Can  it  be  denied,  besides,  that 


PROHIBITION  183 

alcohol  is  an  appetizer  ?    Why  are  cocktails  taken  before 
meals  all  over  the  world  f 

Do  not  imagine,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this  dry 
law  will  be  strictly  obeyed.  Sufficient  to  prove  my 
assertion  is  the  one  fact  that  in  Washington,  after  the 
city  became  dry,  twenty-six  empty  whisky  bottles  were 
discovered  (and  photographed  for  publication  in  the 
newspapers)  in  the  very  Capitol  building,  consumed  in 
one  week  by  the  self -same  legislators  who  had  passed 
the  law. 

Up  to  the  present,  in  the  dry  States,  the  law  has  not 
been  obeyed,  and  alcohol  has  been  introduced  on  the 
sly  from  neighboring  States ;  but  with  the  whole  country 
dry  the  consuming  public  of  drinks  slightly  alcoholic, 
such  as  wine  and  beer,  will  have  to  manufacture  alcohol 
for  its  consumption  in  their  own  homes.  And  as  it  is 
easier  to  manufacture  whisky  than  wine  or  beer,  real 
harm  will  be  done  to  consumers  of  slightly  alcoholic 
drinks.  Moderate  drinkers  will  become  whisky  drinkers. 
That  is  to  say,  prohibition  will  encourage  intoxication. 
Analogous  phenomena  have  already  been  noticed.  In 
factories  where  smoking  is  prohibited  the  habit  of  chew- 
ing tobacco  has  developed  among  the  smokers. 

In  the  dry  States  the  consumption  of  narcotics  such 
as  cocaine,  morphine  and  heroin  is  such  that  the  situa- 
tion has  become  alarming.  I  have  recently  read  that  in 
the  State  of  New  York  there  are  more  than  200,000  in- 
dividuals who  are  slaves  to  different  kinds  of  narcotics. 
Well-known  authorities  on  the  subject  say  that  there  are 
in  the  United  States  more  than  a  million  addicts  of 
heroin.  Heroin  is  the  worst  form  of  opium.  It  is 
three  and  a  half  times  as  strong  as  morphine.     It  is 


\ 


184      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

a  chemical  product  which  originated  in  Germany,  the 
use  of  which  is  strictly  prohibited  there. 

.Besides,  this  is  a  phenomenon  that  can  be  seen  in 
all  parts.  In  the  dry  districts  of  Norway  the  con- 
sumption of  ether  and  perfumes  as  clandestine  drinks 
has  become  very  common.  In  Germany,  .since  the  anti- 
alcoholic  agitation  began,  the  consumption  of  opium 
has  increased.  In  1907,  29,200  kilograms  were  con- 
sumed; in  1908,  54,200  kilograms;  in  1909,  73,400  kilo- 
grams. Everywhere  it  has  been  found  that  an  attempt 
to  even  partially  suppress  the  consumption  of  alcohol 
brings  as  a  result  an  increase  in  the  use  of  narcotic 
drugs. 

Oh!  life  is  a  vale  of  tears,  even  the  Bible  tells  us, 
but  can  we  not  wipe  these  tears  away  at  will?  I  do 
not  advocate  ebriety,  far  be  it  from  me  to  advocate 
such  an  absurdity,  but  I  do  advocate  the  right  of 
every  person  to  slightly  benumb  his  senses  in  order  to 
rest  from  the  penury  and  fatigue  of  the  day,  in  order 
to  solace  his  mind.  What!  That  man  going  to  his 
dentist  with  a  sharp  pain  in  his  upper  left  molar  can 
get  cocaine,  ether  or  creosote  from  a  doctor  to  ease 
his  physical  pain,  whereas  that  other  returning  home, 
weary  with  the  day's  work,  disillusioned,  dejected,  may 
he  not  ask  his  wife  for  a  draught  of  wine  to  deaden 
his  moral  pain  ? 

Why  ?  Why  ?  In  virtue  of  what  right  may  a  group 
of  men — or  rather  of  women — who  have  never  known 
the  joy  of  living,  who  have  never  known  anything  of 
bitterness,  or  of  lost  illusions,  who  have  never  reached 
the  heights  of  genius,  nor  descended  to  the  depths  of 
misery;  neuter  beings  of  an  irritating  normality;  in 
virtue  of  what  right  may  they  impose  their  will  on 


PROHIBITION  185 

millions  of  persons  who  think  differently  from  them? 

It  is  unquestionable  that  the  abuse  of  alcohol  does 
harm,  as  do  all  abuses.  I  am  an  open  enemy  of  the 
abuse  of  alcohol.  Nothing  is  more  repugnant  to  me 
than  a  drunkard;  but  the  moderate  use  of  alcohol — the 
glass  of  wine  that  you  and  I  have  always  taken  at 
home — is  a  human  necessity,  wanted  by  the  best  of 
men,  those  who  feel  and  think  deeply,  those  who  live 
an  intense  life  and  therefore  require  the  stimulants 
that  have  become  an  inherent  part  of  their  daily  life: 
alcohol,  tobacco,  tea  and  coffee. 

Is  alcohol  weakening  ?  After  drinking  wine  or  cham- 
pagne can  we  work  as  efficiently  as  we  can  without 
one  or  the  other?  The  prohibitionists  insist  a  great 
deal  on  these  points  and  present  statistics  in  which 
different  test  cases  are  tabulated.  Mathematical  prob- 
lems have  been  given  for  solution  to  persons  not  under 
the  influence  of  alcohol,  and  then  to  the  same  persons 
when  under  the  influence  of  a  little  alcohol,  say  a  glass  of 
wine  or  beer,  similar  problems  have  been  put,  and  it  has 
been  shown  that  efficiency  diminishes  in  the  second  case. 
Quite  so,  but  what  does  this  prove?  Make  the  same 
experiment  with  persons  who  have  partaken  of  a  hearty 
meal,  comparing  their  efficiency  with  others  who  have  not 
eaten,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  food  is  also  momentarily 
enervating.  The  body  should  rest  after  eating  and 
drinking  the  same  as  after  having  taken  strenuous 
exercise.  The  harm  done  by  a  drink  cannot  be  meas- 
ured by  the  lesser  or  greater  efficiency  of  the  consumer 
while  the  effects  of  the  drink  are  still  present.  Like- 
wise, sleep  reduces  the  efficiency  of  a  person  to  zero. 
Give  a  mathematical  problem  to  a  person  asleep.  He 
is  incapable  of  solving  it,  which  is  worse  than  solving 


186      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

it  slowly,  as  in  the  case  of  one  under  the  influence 
of  a  glass  of  wine.  Are  we  going  to  abolish  sleep  as 
injurious  because  it  reduces  efficiency  ?  Alcohol  does  not 
permanently  reduce  efficiency;  it  reduces  tension,  pro- 
motes rest  and,  consequently,  like  sleep,  really  increases 
efficiency. 

However,  I  do  not  suggest  that  wine  or  beer  be 
taken  in  order  to  do  more  efficient  work,  even  though 
many  poets  have  written  their  best  poems  when  under 
the  stimulating  influence  of  a  lightly  alcoholic  drink 
or  in  the  midst  of  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke.  I  do  not 
pretend  that  more  efficient  work  is  done  when  digest- 
ing a  banquet  nor  that  more  active  work  can  be  done 
during  sleep.  But  weak  alcoholic  drink  satisfies  a  want 
strongly  felt  by  humanity;  its  use  is  due  to  the  stimu- 
lating capacity  that  alcohol  has  of  intensifying  rest 
and  inducing  forgetfulness.  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  the  most 
inspired  of  American  poets,  was  a  hard  drinker.  By 
an  ancient  enactment  the  Poet  Laureate  of  England 
received  from  the  government,  in  addition  to  his  al- 
lowance of  one  hundred, pounds  a  year,  twenty  "fair 
casques  of  good  Canary  wine.'7 

Life  should  be  lived,  not  as  a  continued  sacrifice, 
but  in  the  enjoyment  of  as  many  healthful  pleasures  as 
we  can  give  ourselves.  True,  these  pleasures  cost  money, 
but  take  away  from  mankind  its  pleasures  and  it  will 
fall  sick  of  neurasthenia  in  two  weeks. 

The  perennial  state  of  mankind  is  one  of  suffering, 
of  sorrow,  of  anxiety,  of  weariness  and  of  anxiety  for 
the  future.  Happiness  is  a  transitory  state.  The  pleas- 
ure of  eating  consists  only  in  relief  from  the  pangs  of 
hunger;  the  pleasure  of  sleeping  is  only  a  mitigation 
of  the  discomfort  caused  by  sleepiness,  and  satisfied  love 


PROHIBITION  187 

is  but  gratified  desire.  Why  should  the  glass  of  wine 
taken  at  meals,  which  is  a  necessity  of  all  normal  people, 
he  denied  for  the  alleviation  of  this  constant  load  of 
care? 

The  fact  that  some  abuse  alcohol,  few,  very  few  in 
proportion  to  the  immense  majority  who  drink  moder- 
ately, is  not  a  reason  to  sacrifice  all.  Water  is  respon- 
sible for  so  many  misfortunes,  for  so  many  deaths.  How 
many  people  have  been  drowned  at  sea  in  shipwrecks 
or  in  rivers  when  bathing?  Is  this  a  reason  why  we 
should  be  against  water? 

Has  not  every  person  the  right  to  live  as  he  pleases, 
provided  that  he  does  no  harm  to  anybody  else?  Why 
should  he  be  deprived  of  the  right  to  drink  a  glass 
of  beer?  I  cannot  get  this  into  my  head;  nor  will  you 
be  able  to  do  so ;  our  mode  of  thinking  is  fundamentally 
at  variance  with  that  of  this  country.  If  the  prohibi- 
tionist has  the  right  to  impose  his  abstinence  on  those 
who  do  drink,  why  should  not  those  who  do  drink 
have  the  right  to  compel  the  teetotaler  to  take  wine? 
In  our  country  everybody  drinks,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions. Would  it  be  logical  to  permit  this  majority  that 
likes  to  have  a  glass  of  wine  with  their  meals  to  force 
teetotalers  to  do  so?  Clearly,  no  more  logical  than  in 
the  opposite  case.  Let  those  drink  who  wish  to  do  so, 
and  let  those  refrain  who  do  not  wish  it ;  let  each  side 
carry  on  their  propaganda  as  they  see  fit,  but  let  us 
make  no  law  dictating  to  each  person  his  menu. 

There  is  a  very  big  difference,  which  the  prohibition- 
ists do  not  appear  to  see,  between  beer  containing  three 
and  four  and  a  half  per  cent  of  alcohol,  wine  or  cham- 
pagne with  ten  per  cent,  and  whisky,  rum  and  brandy 
containing  from  thirty  to  sixty-five  per  cent  of  alcohol. 


188      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

These  last  named  drinks  are  harmful,  unless  taken  in 
small  quantities,  because  they  are  habit-forming.  You 
know  very  well  that  I  have  always  taken  the  same 
amount  of  wine,  just  as  you  have.  Wine  does  not  form 
the  habit  of  drinking,  nor  beer  either.  The  person  who 
begins  by  taking  a  little  whisky  requires  more  later  on, 
and  even  more  still  later,  as  with  the  drug  habit.  This 
is  why  I  am  in  favor  of  prohibiting  the  sale  of  strong 
alcoholic  drinks,  but  I  do  not  mean  that  this  prohibition 
should  be  extended  to  wine  and  beer. 

I  think  that  if  the  United  States  goes  dry  the  use  of 
morphine,  opium,  heroin  and  other  drugs  will  be  in- 
creased to  such  an  extent  that  there  will  be  a  strong 
reaction,  and  the  country  will  have  to  abolish  its  pro- 
hibition amendment.  In  the  dry  States  of  the  Union 
the  manufacture,  sale  and  use  of  patent  medicines,  the 
principal  ingredient  of  which  is  alcohol,  have  increased 
a  great  deal.  Is  there  a  remedy  for  rheumatism  with 
ten,  twenty  or  thirty  per  cent  of  alcohol  ?  Is  there  an- 
other cure-all  for  the  kidneys,  liver,  cancer,  and  bubonic 
plague,  with  alcohol  as  its  base?  Well,  neither  Tom, 
Dick  nor  Harry  suffer  from  rheumatism,  cancer  or 
bubonic  plague,  but  like  every  normal  man,  they  have 
their  blue  days,  hours  of  weariness  and  disillusions  and 
they  want  to  forget ;  so  they  have  recourse  to  these  drugs 
and  poison  their  bodies  with  fake  medicines  for  diseases 
from  which  they  do  not  suffer.  Everybody  will  become 
a  consumer  of  patent  medicines.  This  is  only  to  be  ex- 
pected unless  the  country  continues  to  drink  alcohol 
secretly,  and  in  this  case  it  would  not  consume  beer 
or  wine,  but  almost  pure  alcohol,  since  those  who  dis- 
obey the  law  will  not  do  so  by  producing  drinks  contain- 
ing three  per  cent  alcohol  but  those  with  seventy  or 


PROHIBITION  189 

eighty  per  cent.  Counterfeiters  do  not  make  pennies  or 
nickels,  but  one,  five  or  twenty  dollar  bills. 

It  has  not  been  the  men  or  nations  that  abstain  from 
drink  that  have  most  distinguished  themselves.  China 
is  a  dry  country  and  Beligum  is  one  of  the  countries 
that  consumes  the  most  beer  per  inhabitant.  Belgium 
consumes  fourteen  liters  of  pure  alcohol  a  head  every 
year.  Which  is  more  civilized,  Belgium  or  China? 
Germany,  a  consumer  of  beer  on  a  large  scale,  has  in 
thirty  years  increased  its  population  from  forty  to 
sixty  millions. 

However,  you  must  not  suppose  that  everybody  here 
meekly  accepts  this  prohibitionist  movement.  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  a  representative  of  our  church  in  this  country, 
published  last  year  the  most  violent  protest  against 
the  prohibitionist  movement.    He  said: 

"I  should  consider  the  passage  of  a  Federal  Prohibi- 
tion Law  a  national  catastrophe,  little  short  of  a  crime 
against  the  spiritual  and  physical  well-being  of  the 
American  people.  I  am  firmly  and  unalterably  opposed 
(also)  to  the  enactment  of  (even)  state-wide  prohibi- 
tory legislation,  for  such  sweeping  measures  mean 
that  the  rural  districts,  for  instance,  can  force  their 
sumptuary  judgment  upon  the  urban  districts.  This 
is  a  denial  of  self-government,  an  infringement  upon 
personal  liberty  .  .  . 

"The  history  of  the  world  down  to  the  present  time 
demonstrates  the  fact  that  people  always  have  indulged, 
and,  in  all  probability,  always  will  indulge  in  the  use 
of  alcoholic  drinks.  It  is  true  that  the  use  of  wines  and 
liquors,  when  abused,  leads  to  lamentable  consequences; 
yet,  the  best  of  things  are  liable  to  abuse.  Take  the 
tongue,  for  instance.  We  all  know  the  social  and 
domestic  joy  and  utility  which  is  derived  from  con- 
versation, and  yet  the  misuse  of  the  tongue  leads  daily 


190      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

to  lying  and  misrepresentation,  to  quarrels  and  slander, 
to  bloodshed,  and  often  to  murder.  Should  we  then  be 
justified  in  putting  a  padlock  on  our  mouths  because  of 
the  occasional  misuse  of  the  tongue  ? ' ' 

This  American  movement  in  favor  of  prohibition 
would  not  alarm  me  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that 
these  Yankees  in  all  their  reform  movements  imme- 
diately think  of  a  world  campaign.  They  will  soon  be- 
gin to  extend  their  doctrines  to  Latin  America,  the 
nations  of  which  they  consider  the  orphans  of  this  world. 
And  they,  of  course,  are  to  be  the  tutors. 

Each  day  I  see  more  clearly  that  the  Yankee  peril 
is  for  us  multiform,  political,  commercial,  religious  and 
social. 


Your  affectionate  husband, 


Miss  Jones  was  very  familiar  with  the  prohibition 
movement  of  her  country.  She  had,  therefore,  no  need 
to  make  great  efforts  of  investigation  in  order  to  write 
the  usual  comments,  but  it  took  her  full  two  days  to 
write  the  following  answer: 

Madam : 

The  problem  that  your  husband  treats  in  this  letter 
has — like  the  woman  suffrage  problem — three  aspects. 
First:  Is  the  consumption  of  alcohol  in  small  or  large 
quantities  harmful  or  beneficial  to  health?  Second: 
Is  it  advisable  or  not  for  society  to  stop  its  consump- 
tion ?    Third :    Is  it  right  or  is  it  not  right  to  stop  the 


PROHIBITION  191 

manufacture  and  consumption  of  alcohol,  if  the  majority 
of  the  people  are  in  favor  of  doing  so  ? 

The  fight  for  prohibition  is  not  new  in  our  country. 
It  began  with  our  colonial  life.  Never,  of  course,  has 
there  been  any  doubt  that  alcohol  is  harmful  if  taken 
in  sufficient  quantity  to  cause  intoxication.  It  is  the 
consumption  of  alcohol  in  small  quantities  that  we  are 
going  to  consider,  that  little  taste  of  alcohol  which  your 
husband  claims  is  a  necessity  for  man  to  deaden  the 
miseries  of  life. 

But  before  going  further,  madam,  allow  me  to  pro- 
test against  that  pessimistic  philosophy  of  your  hus- 
band who  believes  life  to  be  a  vale  of  torture,  of  sor- 
rows, of  ungratefulness,  a  prolonged  situation  of  suf- 
fering with,  here  and  there,  an  oasis  of  pleasure  as  a 
mere  accident  of  assuaged  pain. 

I  had  already  noted  this  tendency  of  Latin  Ameri- 
can philosophy.  There  is  a  stamp  of  sadness  on  the 
Latin  American  soul,  and  I  do  not  believe — as  do  some 
thinkers — that  this  stamp  has  been  placed  there  by 
the  Argentine  pampas,  the  Chilean  deserts,  or  the 
Brazilian  forests.  No,  this  stamp  has  been  placed  there 
by  the  dejected  and  taciturn  Indian  who  has  mingled 
his  blood  in  the  veins  of  Iberian  America.  It  is  true 
that  there  is  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  popu- 
lation without  native  blood,  and  I  think  I  am  right  in 
supposing  that  neither  you  nor  your  husband  have 
inherited  the  strain.  It  is,  however,  also  true  that  the 
Spaniard  is  a  pessimist,  and  pre-war  French  philosophy, 
which  has  inspired  Latin  America,  was  also  pessimistic. 
At  this  very  moment,  when  I  am  writing  to  you,  I 
have  before  me  on  my  desk  a  letter  from  a  friend  of 
mine  in  Chile.     This  letter  has  wide  borders  in  black. 


192      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

The  girl  who  wrote  it  has  lost  an  aunt  whom  I  did 
not  even  know.  With  this  black-edged  note-paper, 
which  my  friend  always  uses,  and  which  she  will  con- 
tinue to  use  for  the  next  six  months,  she  spreads  her 
grief,  intensified  hy  much  outward  parade,  among  the 
whole  circle  of  her  acquaintances.  I  can  see  her  now, 
all  in  black,  even  with  a  black  handkerchief;  the  piano 
of  the  house  closed  and  all  theaters  and  parties  under  a 
ban.  Why  perpetuate  and  intensify  melancholy?  Sor- 
row is  looked  for  and  courted,  and  then  comes  a  drink 
to  deaden  the  pain !  Among  the  poorer  classes  of  Latin 
America,  a  funeral,  a  wake,  is  sufficient  motive  to  start 
a  carouse.  Sorrow  is  first  provoked  and  stimulated,  and 
then  drink  is  supplied  to  allay  it.  Years  ago,  in  Latin 
America,  rich  people,  when  they  lost  a  member  of  the 
family,  used  to  hire  women  mourners,  professionals  in 
the  art  of  crying,  the  tears  of  the  family  not  sufficing 
to  voice  the  lamentations  over  the  loss. 

We  suffer  no  less  from  our  misfortunes,  nor  do  we 
less  sincerely  reverence  our  dead,  but  with  a  more  op- 
timistic philosophy  we  consider  death  as  a  natural  thing, 
and  we  honor  the  memory  of  our  dead  in  a  very  different 
way.  A  tomb  in  your  cemetery,  surrounded  with  lugu- 
brious cypress  trees,  is  a  hymn  to  death.  Our  Leland 
Stanford,  Jr.,  University  is  the  counterpart  to  your 
mausoleum,  an  American  memorial  shrine,  a  hymn  to 
life,  to  effort,  a  monument  erected  by  the  dead  boy's 
parents  to  his  memory.  Another  mother,  Matilde  Zieg- 
ler,  has  a  blind  son.  Her  prayers,  are  addressed  to 
heaven;  while  here  below  she  works  cheerfully,  extend- 
ing her  love  to  all  other  blind  people  and  founding  a 
magazine  for  blind  people  which  carries  her  name. 
There  are  endless  cases  like  these.    If  these  persons,  in 


PROHIBITION  193 

order  to  drown  their  troubles,  were  to  seek  those  be- 
numbing effects  of  alcohol  which  your  husband  extols, 
they  would  be  acting  selfishly  instead  of  looking  for 
mitigation  of  their  grief  by  working  for  the  welfare 
and  happiness  of  others. 

If  the  workman  comes  home  tired  after  a  day's  work 
of  ten  or  twelve  hours  and  finds  relief  in  a  glass  of 
wine  because  it  benumbs  his  senses,  it  means  that  that 
workman  should  not  do  hard  work  during  ten  or  twelve 
hours  a  day ;  it  means  that  he  has  been  kept  working  at 
a  very  high  pressure,  and  the  remedy  consists  in  lower- 
ing the  pressure. 

To  assume  that  alcohol  when  taken  moderately  in- 
creases human  happiness  because  it  slightly  benumbs 
man's  senses,  and  in  this  way  enables  him  better  to 
put  up  with  the  pains  of  life,  is  the  same  as  to  say 
that  the  dog  is  happier  than  man  because  it  has  less 
preoccupations,  and  that  plants  are  happier  than  the 
dog,  and  for  the  same  reason  the  stone  happier  than 
the  plant.  Nirvana  would  be  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  hap- 
piness. 

Moreover,  if  I  wished  to  argue  like  your  husband 
when  he  says  that  we,  to  be  consistent,  should  be  against 
water  as  much  as  against  alcohol,  on  account  of  all  the 
shipwrecks  on  the  ocean,  I  would  tell  your  husband 
that,  to  be  consistent,  he  should  also  preach  the  doctrine 
of  having  our  eyes  taken  out  so  as  not  to  see  so  much 
human  suffering. 

But  no;  sensibility  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  at- 
tributes of  man,  in  my  opinion — useful  for  enjoyment 
and  for  suffering.  If  our  body  had  not  the  capacity 
to  suffer  from  a  blow,  or  from  sickness,  we  should  lack 
the  note  of  alarm  urging  us  to  remedy  the  evil.     If 


194      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

a  child  felt  no  pain  when  placing  his  finger  in  a  flame, 
he  would  not  take  it  out,  but  would  allow  it  to  be 
burned  to  a  cinder.  The  worries  and  the  anxieties  of 
man  should  not  be  quieted  by  benumbing  the  senses,  but 
by  shunning  the  causes  of  these  anxieties.  If  a  man  has 
reasons  for  being  discontented  with  life  he  gains  noth- 
ing by  benumbing  his  senses;  he  should  find  a  remedy 
for  his  restlessness  by  avoiding  the  cause  of  it. 

Thus  the  social  organism  is  affected  by  the  misfor- 
tune of  the  community.  The  remedy  is  never  found 
in  a  glass  of  wine  to  benumb  the  senses.  This  is  equiv- 
alent to  renunciation  or  desertion. 

Assuming,  however,  for  a  moment  that  alcohol  is 
harmless  when  taken  moderately,  and  assuming  that 
some  people  with  strong  power  of  will  do  not  acquire 
the  drink  habit,  we  must  remember  that  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  thousands — nay,  millions — of  other  people  with 
weak  will  power,  who,  moderate  drinkers  in  the  begin- 
ning, become  bigger  drinkers  every  day.  Alcohol  is  a 
drug,  and,  like  morphine,  it  is  habit-forming; 

Alcohol  has,  it  is  true,  the  faculty  of  making  one  for- 
get momentarily,  of  quieting  anxieties,  and  your  hus- 
band, happy,  with  a  beautiful  home,  with  a  loving  wife, 
with  abundant  resources — does  not  drink  to  forget,  but 
by  social  habit;  but  when  he  invites  others  to  drink, 
how  often  may  he  not  initiate  into  the  habit  persons 
with  less  will  power  than  he  himself  and  who  have  real 
anxieties  or  worries  to   forget. 

The  fact  that  there  may  be  a  small  number  of  people 
who  are  able  to  drink  moderately,  who  may  not  acquire 
the  drink  habit,  and  who — this  is  merely  hypothetical — 
may  not  suffer,  nor  their  children  either,  from  the  mod- 
erate use  of  alcohol,  would  not  justify  the  manufacture 


PROHIBITION  195 

and  sale  of  alcohol  for  them,  since  the  law  could  not 
differentiate.  By  their  example  they  would  be  doing 
harm  to  society. 

That  alcohol  is  an  anaesthetic,  not  a  stimulant,  has 
already  been  fully  proven,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  its 
action  on  the  organs  and  tissues  of  the  body — whether 
taken  moderately  or  in  excess — is  essentially  that  of 
a  poison.  It  is  in  no  case  a  food,  and  much  less  a  medi- 
cine, as  your  husband  says.  In  1915  the  Grand  Com- 
mittee of  the  American  Pharmacopoeia  struck  out 
liquors  of  all  kinds  from  the  list  of  legitimate  medicines, 
and  in  June  of  1918  at  the  National  Convention  of  the 
American  Medical  Association  the  president  of  the  asso- 
ciation, in  the  midst  of  unanimous  approval,  called  upon 
all  doctors  to  unite  their  efforts  in  favor  of  prohibition 
as  the  best  way  of  promoting  public  health. 

The  fact  that  alcohol  is  made  of  grapes,  cereals,  and 
other  food  substances  has  brought  about  the  mistaken 
belief  that  it  is  a  food.  Hence  the  name  " liquid  bread' ' 
given  to  beer. 

The  fact  that  you  may  have  believed  that  malt  liquor 
was  good  for  you  while  you  nursed  your  children  was 
only  an  illusion.  The  alcohol  consumed  brought  about 
in  you  a  transitory  sensation  of  well-being  on  account  of 
semi-insensibility.  This  has  made  you  seek  the  rest  that 
this  state  demands,  and  rest  has  done  you  good,  because 
it  is  necessary  to  the  woman  who  is  going  to  be  a  mother ; 
but  you  would  have  been  able  to  obtain  that  rest  with- 
out drinking  alcohol  and  with  more  real  benefit  to 
yourself. 

The  minute  investigations  that  have  been  made  with 
regard  to  the  offspring  of  fathers  who  drink  in  modera- 
tion and  to  excess  have  shown  that  alcohol  consumed 


196      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

by  fathers — in  large  or  small  quantities — impairs  the 
integrity  of  the  child,  especially  harming  his  nervous 
system.  These  conclusions  have  been  arrived  at  by 
Professor  Taav  Laitinen,  of  the  University  of  Helsing- 
fors,  in  Finland,  who  had  under  observation  seventeen 
thousand  children  of  fathers  who  were  moderate 
drinkers.  Professor  Gustav  von  Bunge,  of  Basel,  Switz- 
erland, has  made  investigations  in  the  cases  of  fathers 
who  indulged  in  the  drink  habit  with  different  degrees 
of  intensity,  and  he  proved  that  physical  defects  in  the 
offspring  are  in  proportion  to  the  intensity  of  the  drink 
habit  on  the  part  of  the  fathers.  I  could  fill  pages  and 
pages  by  quoting  thousands  of  scientific  studies,  care- 
fully made  by  investigators  of  all  countries,  who  agree 
that  the  consumption  of  alcohol  by  fathers  is  harmful 
to  their  children.  The  scientific  investigations  made  by 
the  Carnegie  Nutrition  Laboratory  under  the  direction 
of  Dr.  Benedict  are  conclusive  in  this  respect.  Dr.  Ben- 
edict and  his  fellow  workers  used  to  believe  that  alcohol 
consumed  in  small  quantities  could  be  utilized  by  the 
system  and  serve  as  a  food.  These  investigations  have 
proven  conclusively  that  alcohol  is  always,  and  in  every 
case,  a  poisonous  narcotic. 

From  the  moment  that  it  was  proven  that  alcohol 
is  the  toxin  of  a  fungus,  the  old  controversy  about 
whether  alcohol  was  a  poison  or  not  ended.  Experiments 
made  with  toxins  of  all  classes,  from  those  of  the  highest 
orders  of  life,  such  as  man,  to  those  of  inferior  life,  such 
as  microorganisms,  have  permitted  the  establishment  of 
a  law  governing  the  action  of  all  poisons,  to  wit:  the 
toxin  of  a  form  of  life  is  a  poison  for  the  form  of  life 
that  produces  it,  and  a  poison  for  all  forms  of  life  of  a 
superior  type.    Consequently,  alcohol,  a  toxin  produced 


PROHIBITION  197 

by  the  fermentation  of  a  fungus,  one  of  the  lower  forms 
of  life,  is  a  poison  for  all  other  forms  of  life,  such  as 
plants  of  a  higher  grade  and  animals,  and,  of  course, 
most  especially  for  man,  with  his  marvelously  developed 
nervous  system. 

Some  believe  that  alcohol  by  burning  itself  prevents 
the  burning  and  destruction  of  the  tissues.  In  fact, 
alcohol  reduces  the  process  of  nutrition  of  the  cells  and 
fosters  the  accumulation  of  unnecessary  fat.  This  is 
why  beer  makes  one  fat,  but  this  artificial  obesity  is 
harmful  to  the  organism. 

The  mere  fact  that  organic,  vegetable  or  animal,  ma- 
terial can  be  preserved  in  alcohol  is  proof  that  no 
vital  process  can  be  developed  in  alcohol. 

No  superior  animal  can  live  if  given  six  drops  of  al- 
cohol for  every  thousand  drops  of  blood.  Five  ounces 
of  pure  alcohol,  a  small  glassful,  is  a  sufficient  dose  to 
cause  the  death  of  a  man  in  ten  hours. 

None  of  the  digestive  juices  can  digest  alcohol,  so 
that  the  latter  passes  unaltered  to  the  blood.  About 
twenty  per  cent,  is  absorbed  by  the  stomach  and  eighty 
per  cent,  by  the  intestines.  The  larger  part  is  found 
in  the  blood  one  hour  after  having  been  taken.  When 
alcohol  enters  the  blood,  it  attacks  its  constituent  parts 
and  begins  to  weaken  them  by  depriving  them  of  water 
and  oxygen  and  coagulating  the  protein  and  albumen. 

The  myriads  of  red  globules,  live  vehicles  that  trans- 
port their  load  of  oxygen  from  the  lungs  to  the  cells, 
and  their  returning  cargo  of  waste  matter  from  the 
cells  to  the  lungs,  are  attacked  by  alcohol.  Their  pro- 
tective cover  is  penetrated  as  it  is  by  chloroform  and 
ether. 

Your  husband  says  that  sleep  is  also  benumbing  and 


198      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

should  be  condemned  as  alcohol.  Sleep  is  a  natural 
phenomenon.  On  awakening,  man  feels  fresh  and 
strong  with  increased  vigor,  whereas  when  he  recovers 
from  the  effects  of  alcohol  he  actually  feels  only  more 
downcast.  With  the  natural  rest  of  sleep  man  has 
gained;  with  the  artificial  rest  of  alcohol  he  has  lost. 

That  alcohol  vivifies  the  imagination  and  is  a  muse 
of  inspiration  for  thinkers,  novelists  and  poets  is  an 
illusion.  In  a  party  where  alcohol  is  consumed  every 
one  becomes  more  loquacious;  but  at  the  same  time 
each  one  places  himself  on  an  inferior  intellectual  level 
and  is  ready  to  concede  and  applaud  that  which  he 
would  not  concede  and  applaud  under  normal  condi- 
tions. He  is  less  exacting.  As  regards  our  poet,  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  his  biographers  have  clearly  established  the 
fact  that  he  never  wrote  a  line  when  his  head  was 
not  absolutely  clear  and  free  from  all  alcoholic  influence. 

That  the  suppression  of  alcohol  would  stimulate  the 
consumption  of  narcotics  is  a  vain  assertion.  Morphine, 
heroin  and  opium  are  consumed  on  a  large  scale  in 
States  and  countries  where  alcohol  rules.  Very  often 
alcohol  is  the  antechamber  of  morphine. 

Consequently,  madam,  those  fighters  who  are  work- 
ing for  the  abolition  of  the  consumption  of  alcohol  in 
society,  those  whom  your  husband  calls  fanatics,  are 
the  phagocytes  of  the  social  body;  they  are  the  fanatics 
who  protect  the  life  and  health  of  society. 

It  is  absurd,  madam,  to  speak  of  the  thousands  of 
men  who  are  going  to  be  thrown  out  of  work  when 
the  manufacture  of  alcoholic  drinks  is  prohibited.  Our 
country  needs  more  and  more  men  for  useful  pursuits; 
the  more  men  thrown  out  of  these  industries,  the  better. 
This  applies  to  capital  also.    Vineyards  and  distilleries 


PROHIBITION  199 

can  be  used  for  the  production  of  other  necessities,  as 
has  already  been  the  case  in  some  States.  As  for  the 
revenue  which  the  government  will  not  receive,  this 
means  nothing  either,  because  a  nation  which  prohibits 
the  use  of  alcohol  is  much  more  efficient,  much  richer 
and  better  able  to  pay  taxes  derived,  not  from  pain, 
degradation  and  ruin,  but  from  happiness,  dignity  and 
prosperity. 

The  Russian  Secretary  of  Finance,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  world  war,  estimated,  soon  after  the  manufac- 
ture of  vodka  was  prohibited,  that  Russia,  with  a  third 
of  its  workmen  in  the  army,  had  nevertheless  doubled 
its  producing  capacity.  The  British  Minister  of  Muni- 
tions estimated  that  national  efficiency  increased  25 
per  cent,  merely  by  the  imposition  of  measures  moder- 
ating the  consumption  of  alcohol.  All  contributions 
which  the  State  receives  from  alcohol  are  insufficient 
to  cover  the  expense  incurred  by  the  vice,  misery,  crime, 
and  disease  which  alcohol  causes. 

Gathering  together  the  threads  of  argument,  it  can 
be  said  that  there  is  a  moral  reason,  a  scientific  reason, 
and  an  economic  reason  for  combating  alcohol.  Moral 
because  alcohol  is  always  leagued  with  vice,  gambling, 
and  prostitution;  scientific  because  it  has  been  proved 
that  alcohol  fosters  the  ruin  of  the  individual's  health 
and  that  of  his  children;  economic  because  alcohol  re- 
duces the  efficiency  of  the  drinker,  whether  he  consumes 
it  in  large  or  small  quantities. 

Accepting  all  this,  there  still  remains  to  be  answered 
that  part  of  the  letter  in  which  your  husband  says  that 
the  anti-alcoholic  laws  of  our  States  and  the  Federal 
law  that  is  to  be  passed  are  infringements  on  liberty. 

Liberty  in  our  democracy  does  not  mean  anarchy;  it 


200      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

means  the  authority  of  the  majority  to  dictate  laws,  and 
the  respect  of  all — the  majority  and  the  minority — for 
these  laws.  Among  our  one  hundred  million  inhabitants 
there  surely  are  not  two  persons  of  the  same  opinion 
about  everything.  Many  that  have  been  for  prohibition 
may  be  against  other  laws  that,  nevertheless,  they  have 
to  respect.  We  are  all  continually  respecting  some  law 
or  order  that  we  do  not  like,  and  at  the  same  time  we 
have  contributed  to  having  some  law  passed  that  does 
not  please  another.  But  this  respect  for  the  will  of  the 
majority  is  the  base  of  order  in  a  democracy. 

If  the  majority  passes  a  law  the  only  thing  left  for 
the  minority  to  do  is  to  fight  for  the  amendment  of 
that  law.  The  same  force  that  passes  a  law  can  abolish 
it.  The  forces  that  favor  alcohol  in  my  country  under- 
stand this  very  well  and  have  labored  in  prohibitionist 
States  to  reestablish  the  saloon.  Kansas  has  been  dry 
for  about  forty  years.  Since  1880  in  four-fifths  of  the 
State  the  most  drastic  anti-alcoholic  law  has  been  in 
effect.  Seven  years  ago  an  attempt  was  made  to  ask 
Congress  to  suppress  prohibition.  A  tenth  of  the  neces- 
sary votes  could  not  be  secured.  The  State  of  Wash- 
ington became  dry  in  1915.  The  most  important  beer 
factories  in  the  country  were  there.  Seattle,  the  largest 
city  in  the  State,  was  the  first  to  vote  in  favor  of  pro- 
hibition in  the  proportion  of  three  to  two.  After  two 
years'  experience  the  law  was  submitted  to  the  city  by 
popular  initiative  in  conformity  with  the  constitution  of 
the  State,  and  Seattle  voted  this  time  five  to  one  against 
the  restoration  of  alcohol.  The  whole  State  then  again 
voted,  nine  to  one,  in  favor  of  the  prohibition  of  alcohol. 

This  triumph  of  prohibition  in  my  country  is  not 
tyranny  on  the  part  of  the  minority,  as  your  husband 


PROHIBITION  201 

says,  but  the  will  of  the  majority,  and  democracy  means 
the  rule  of  the  majority.  If  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  get  a  majority  against  alcohol  half  a  century  ago, 
little  by  little  this  has  become  easier  because  of  the 
wider  education  of  the  people  regarding  this  grave 
problem,  and  since  this  majority  has  been  attained  and 
the  State  has  become  dry,  the  object  lesson  of  the  dim- 
inution of  immorality,  increase  in  savings,  fewer  jails, 
and  increase  in  business,  has  been  so  eloquent  that  the 
opposers  of  yesterday  are  the  defenders  of  to-day. 

A  grave  problem,  madam,  for  your  country  is  that  the 
ruling  classes  have  economic  interests  so  widely  con- 
nected with  alcoholic  industries.  Your  husband  himself 
is  a  producer  of  wines.  It  happens  that,  unconsciously, 
the  man  who  gets  his  income  from  the  manufacture  of 
wines,  champagne,  and  whisky  fails  to  see  the  grave 
evil  that  this  industry  is  for  his  country.  Your  coun- 
try's case  is  the  same  as  that  of  England,  where  the 
rulers  have  interests  in  alcoholic  industries.  This  may 
be  the  reason  why  the  people  are  so  given  to  drink, 
not  by  nature,  nor  by  instinct,  but  by  reflex  education. 
I  have  often  heard  the  Chilean  people — the  working 
classes — accused  of  being  drinkers  by  instinct.  The 
manager  of  the  coal  mines  of  Coronel,  in  Chile,  an  Eng- 
lishman, told  me  when  I  visited  those  regions  that  it 
was  impossible  to  suppress  the  inveterate  drink  habit 
of  the  Chilean  people.  There  were  five  thousand  work- 
men there,  and  the  day  I  visited  the  mine  all  were  intox- 
icated. It  was  Independence  Day.  In  another  plant 
of  your  country — El  Teniente,  a  copper  deposit  worked 
by  Americans — there  are  also  five  thousand  workmen, 
and  it  is  the  only  prohibitionist  population  in  your  coun- 
try.    There  nobody,  neither  the  manager  nor  the  em- 


202      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

ployees,  may  have  even  a  drop  of  beer,  but  all  are  con- 
tented, and  the  workmen  there  save  more  than  in  any 
other  part  of  the  country.  If  prohibition  could  be  ex- 
tended to  the  whole  of  your  country  it  would  be  an 
Eden  by  its  climate,  by  its  natural  wealth,  and  by  the 
intrinsic  value  of  its  men  and  women. 

A  Friend  of  the  Other  Continent. 


T 


CHAPTER  X 

EDUCATION,    CHARACTER    AND   HABITS 

"WO  weeks  later,  on  opening  the  heavy  envelope 
from  Chicago,  Miss  Jones  asked  herself  what  it 
would  be  now.     She  read,  as  usual,  eagerly: 


Chicago,  111., 1918. 

My  dearest: 


When  crossing  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  board  the 
Athens,  my  table  companion  asked  me : 

"Where  are  you  from?" 

"From  Santiago,  Chile." 

* '  Where  are  you  going ! ' ' 

"To  Chicago." 

"  Oh !  Are  you  coming  to  see  the  baseball  games  be- 
tween Chicago  and  New  York?" 

It  was  perfectly  natural,  according  to  the  American 
mentality  of  my  interlocutor,  for  me  to  come  from  the 
other  hemisphere,  a  voyage  which  takes  almost  a  month, 
to  see  a  baseball  game  in  which  is  at  stake  what  is  here 
called  the  championship  of  the  world,  and  even  of  all 
the  planets,  although  it  is  really  only  of  the  United 
States. 

When  the  steamer  was  three  days  distant  from  New 

203 


204      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Orleans  the  wireless  messages  were  already  able  to  give 
us  news  of  the  world. 

I  hasten  to  read  the  news  bulletin.  I  wonder  what 
has  happened  in  the  wide  world  during  the  days  of, 
our  isolation.  Ah,  we  are  at  the  gates  of  the  United 
States.  The  most  important  news  of  the  bulletins  refer 
to  the  baseball  championship. 

At  last  I  arrived  in  Chicago.  It  was  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  I  called  a  taxi  to  take  me  to  the  Hotel 
Blackstone,  which  is  so  large  that  the  whole  population 
of  a  Chilean  town  could  be  accommodated  therein  at  one 
time. 

' '  There  are  no  vacant  rooms,  sir,  "lam  told.  "We  pass 
on  to  another  hotel. 

"Not  a  room  to  be  had." 

4 'No  rooms." 

"Full  up." 

It  has  taken  me — I  observed  this  out  of  mere  curiosity 
— exactly  two  hours  and  eight  minutes  in  an  automo- 
bile going  from  hotel  to  hotel  looking  for  a  room  j  and  I 
was  able  to  get  one  in  a  tenth-rate  hotel  only  by  the 
merest  chance.  I  had  to  stay  there  for  several  days. 
Chicago  was  overflowing  with  people  who  had  come  to 
see  the  baseball  game  scheduled  for  that  Sunday. 

Naturally,  I  wanted  to  go  and  see  this  marvelous 
game.  It  was  impossible.  All  the  good  seats  were  sold 
beforehand,  and  in  order  to  secure  the  cheapest  of  them 
— a  dollar  and  a  half — of  which  fifteen  thousand  were 
sold  a  few  hours  before  the  game,  there  was  a  crowd 
of  more  than  fifteen  thousand  people  waiting,  a  large 
part  of  them  stationed  in  front  of  the  ticket  boxes  all 
night,  standing  in  the  midst  of  glacial  cold. 

This  baseball   championship   is  played   between  the 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       205 

teams  that  have  been  victorious  during  the  year  in  their 
respective  leagues,  the  American  League  and  the  Na- 
tional League.  The  teams  that  had  won  the  pennants 
and  that  were  going  to  play  for  the  world's  cham- 
pionship were  the  Giants  of  New  York  and  the  White 
Sox  of  Chicago.  The  first  two  games  are  played  in 
Chicago  and  then  two  in  New  York.  If  all  four  games 
are  won  by  one  team,  this  is  the  winner  of  the  cham- 
pionship of  the  whole  solar  system. 

The  Sunday  that  I  arrived  in  Chicago  this  city  won 
the  two  games.  The  two  following  games  were  played  in 
New  York  and  won  by  the  New  Yorkers,  making  it 
necessary  to  continue  playing  until  one  team  had  won 
four  games. 

I  was  able  to  go  to  the  fifth  game,  which  was  played 
in  Chicago,  by  buying  as  a  special  favor  the  ticket  of  a 
gentleman  who  had  to  leave  Chicago  that  day. 

" Please  keep  the  stub  for  me,"  he  said  when  selling 
me  the  ticket;  "I  want  to  frame  it." 

Do  not  suppose  that  he  said  this  in  fun.  He  was  in 
earnest.  That  stub  was  for  him  more  than  a  souvenir — 
it  was  a  relic. 

The  tickets  when  resold  by  speculators  bring  incredible 
sums,  sometimes  as  much  as  one  hundred  dollars — so  I 
am  told. 

The  colosseum,  where  this  stupendous  game  is  played, 
is  crammed  to  overflowing.  It  is  an  immense  human 
ocean.  Forty  thousand  people  have  secured  seats. 
There  is  in  the  air  that  feeling  of  breathless  expectation 
which  precedes  the  most  important  events  in  life.  Down 
on  the  field  the  players — like  epic  gladiators  in  the 
arena — by  their  very  appearance  electrify  the  people. 

I  had  already  seen  in  the  shop  windows  little  terra 


206      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

cotta  statues  representing  these  players  who  are  going 
to  fight  for  the  championship  of  the  alert  muscle;  and 
it  is  easier  to  sell  these  figures  of  baseball  players  than 
statues  of  Stephenson,  Fulton,  Pasteur,  Shakespeare  or 
Marconi.  I  do  not  know  if  I  should  also  include  "Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln;  but  this  I  do  know:  on  the  same 
day  that  more  seats  were  needed  in  a  stadium  with 
capacity  for  forty  thousand  persons  paying  exorbitant 
prices  to  see  the  players  in  a  game,  there  were  about 
a  thousand  empty  seats  out  of  12,000  in  the  hall  where 
ex-President  Taft  spoke  on  the  vital  subject  of  the 
United  States  and  the  war,  there  being  absolutely  no 
charge  levied  to  hear  the  famous  orator.  Many  distin- 
guished people  shook  hands  with  ex-President  Taft,  but 
the  players  of  the  winning  team  were  hugged  and  car- 
ried in  triumph.  They  are  even  kissed  in  public !  When 
one  of  these  players  cried  for  mercy  in  the  midst  of  these 
manifestations  of  enthusiasm,  one  of  his  admirers  forced 
his  way  up  to  him  and  kissed  him  on  the  forehead.  In 
addition  to  the  glory,  the  hugs  and  the  kisses,  these 
champions  also  receive  fabulous  sums  in  cash. 

A  sport  critic  says  that  the  costumes  of  these  rival 
teams  will  exercise  some  influence  in  the  style  of 
women's  clothes. 

At  one  side,  in  the  grandstand,  I  see  a  line  of  tele- 
graph operators  working  busily  at  their  respective  posts. 
They  are  the  telegraph  operators  who  are  sending  out 
all  the  details  of  the  game  for  the  whole  country  to  read. 
The  news  distributed  regarding  all  the  battles  waged 
in  Europe  is  not  one-hundredth  part  so  voluminous  as 
that  published  here  about  the  game  I  am  witnessing, 
nor  is  it  so  detailed,  nor  sent  out  so  quickly.  One 
hundred  million  people  follow,  through  newspapers  and 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       207 

the  moving  picture,  the  most  minute  details  of  the 
game.  On  leaving  the  colisseum  I  bought  a  newspaper 
which  gave  all  the  details  of  the  first  part  of  the  game 
that  I  had  witnessed  some  minutes  before. 

In  the  course  of  the  game,  particularly  when  the 
Chicago  team  scored  a  point,  the  arena  looked  like  a 
colossal  mad-house  with  forty  thousand  lunatics  yelling 
in  delirium.  Suddenly  the  whole  crowd  rises  to  its 
feet  as  one  man.  Hats  and  coats  are  thrown  into  the 
air.  An  indescribable  hubbub  follows;  and  this  mass 
is  composed  of  all  kinds  of  people:  men,  women,  old, 
young,  millionaires  and  workingmen. 

The  White  Sox,  the  Chicago  team,  win  the  game. 
The  applause  seems  to  shake  the  globe.  It  is  the  frenzy, 
the  madness  of  sport.  Another  mentality  than  ours  is 
needed  to  understand  this.  A  boxing  champion  is  also 
converted  here  into  a  national  hero.  The  Yankees,  be- 
sides being  worshipers  of  the  golden  fleece,  adore  brute 
force. 

It  is  true  that  in  all  parts  of  this  country  may  be 
seen  public  schools  housed  in  magnificent  buildings,  uni- 
versities endowed  with  millions  and  millions,  splendid 
public  libraries  like  those  of  Washington,  New  York  and 
Chicago,  but  I  cannot  understand  what  part  these  insti- 
tutions play  in  the  life  of  these  people,  since  they  are 
cultured  neither  in  knowledge  nor  in  manners. 

Every  time  I  am  asked  my  nationality  and  I  answer 
that  I  am  from  Chile,  people  stare  at  me  as  if  I  had 
spoken  in  another  language.  Some  ask  me  in  what 
State — referring  to  the  States  of  this  country — that  city 
is  located.    I  answer: 

"From  Chile,  South  America." 

"Ah!  South  America !"  they  exclaim,  and  then  there 


208      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

dawns  in  their  minds  the  conception  of  a  vast  country 
in  the  far  South.  They  think  that  South  America  is  a 
single  country.  They  have  a  vague  idea  that  it  is  not 
the  same  as  Mexico ;  they  have  perhaps  heard  of  Buenos 
Aires  or  Rio  de  Janeiro.    Others  say : 

"Oh!  South  America,  a  good  opportunity  to  make 
money";  and  they  think  of  our  nations  as  desolate  re- 
gions where  any  intrepid  explorer  may  possess  himself 
of  immense  tracts  of  country. 

Really,  the  ignorance  of  the  Yankee  in  matters  of  gen- 
eral culture  is  fathomless.  Any  one  of  our  boys  who  has 
been  through  high  school  knows  a  hundred  times  more 
than  the  Yankee  who  is  considered  a  cultured  person 
here.  I  have  spoken  to  managers  of  large  business 
houses,  to  engineers  and  to  doctors,  in  more  or  less  in- 
timate conversation  here  in  the  hotel.  As  a  rule,  they 
are  well  prepared  in  their  respective  lines  and  special- 
ties ;  but  they  show  absolute  ignorance  as  regards  culture 
in  general.  Out  of  the  ordinary  is  he  who  can  speak 
French  or  Spanish.  They  think  English  is  the  language 
of  the  universe  and  they  do  not  bother  to  learn  other 
languages.  For  them  all  the  civilization  of  the  world 
is  here. 

The  Yankee  is  of  astonishing  superficiality.  He  learns 
only  what  is  absolutely  essential  to  make  a  living.  Of 
the  sciences,  when  he  must,  he  learns  the  principles  and 
the  laws,  but  not  the  reasons  for  those  principles  and 
laws.  In  mathematics  he  learns  how  to  use  the  tables. 
An  engineer  learns  the  strength  of  materials  in  a  week, 
since  he  is  taught  only  to  consult  the  tables.  This  is 
why  this  country  has  not  produced  a  Pascal,  or  a  Des- 
cartes or  a  Newton.  Neither  has  it  produced  geniuses 
in  literature.     Where  is  their  Shakespeare,  their  Cer- 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS      209 

vantes,  their  Moliere,  their  Dante?  Eodin  would  never 
have  been  able  to  find  in  this  country  a  model  for  his 
"Thinker." 

But  if  the  schools  and  colleges  do  not  teach  the  Yankee 
child  the  humanities  endowing  man  with  the  smallest 
modicum  of  culture  possessed  by  him  in  all  civilized 
countries,  neither  do  they  teach  manners. 

I  have  never  seen  people  more  badly  behaved  in  any 
other  part  of  the  world.  They  are  rude  in  their  language 
with  the  rudeness  of  baseball ;  they  do  not  know  how  to 
sit,  they  put  their  feet  on  the  table ;  they  do  not  know 
how  to  eat,  they  eat  chicken  with  their  hands ;  they  do 
not  know  how  to  greet  one,  they  do  not  take  off  their  hat 
tto  greet  even  their  superiors;  they  say:  this  "man," 
this  "woman,"  whereas,  in  all  the  other  countries  of 
the  world  this  "gentleman,"  this  "lady,"  is  the  rule 
of  speech.  In  a  trolley  or  railroad  car  a  man  seldom 
gets  up  to  give  his  seat  to  a  lady. 

This  is  the  only  country  in  the  world  that  I  know  of 
where  chewing-gum  is  used.  On  Broadway,  New  York, 
the  most  brilliant,  most  complicated  and,  doubtless,  most 
expensive  electric  sky  sign  is  one  advertising  chewing- 
gum.  Enormous  posters  glorifying  this  chewing-gum 
may  be  seen  everywhere.  Of  course,  you  do  not  know 
of  it  even  by  name.  It  is  a  gum  that  the  people  here 
chew  incessantly.  It  is  a  sticky,  disgusting  ingredient 
that  the  jaws  of  almost  all  the  Yankees  are  squeezing 
every  hour  of  the  day.  I  cannot  understand  how  this 
disgusting  habit  has  become  so  popular,  to  the  extreme 
of  making  the  chewing-gum  industry  as  important  in 
this  country  as  the  match  industry.  And  even  t Hough 
the  art  of  chewing  gum  is  disgusting,  you  will  see  well- 


210      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

dressed  people  of  decent  appearance,  young  girls,  chew- 
ing gum  in  theaters  and  at  receptions. 

This  lack  of  ceremony  can  be  seen  everywhere.  On 
hot  days  the  Yankee  walks  through  the  streets  with  his 
coat  off  j  in  automobiles  he  appears  in  his  shirt  sleeves; 
in  the  parks  everybody  sits  on  the  ground  without  coat 
and  vest,  and  even  with  their  shirts  open.  On  the  lake 
shore  young  couples  are  seen  in  bathing  suits  seated 
together. 

In  one  of  my  previous  letters  I  mentioned  the  word 
lynching  as  of  genuine  Yankee  manufacture.  There  is 
another  word  which  this  nation  has  contributed  to  the 
vocabulary  of  all  languages:  " bluff."  Hence  our  word 
"blufear."  Here  everything  is  "the  biggest  in  the 
world,"  "the  most  beautiful  in  the  world,"  "the  most 
expensive  in  the  world."  The  Chicago  newspaper  that 
I  generally  read  is  called  "The  Chicago  Tribune,"  and 
under  the  title  it  has  this  sub-title :  ' '  The  Largest  News- 
paper In  The  World,"  which,  of  course,  is  not  true, 
but  so  that  none  may  surpass  it,  it  publishes  on  one  of 
its  pages  a  small  caricature  section  in  the  form  of  a 
newspaper  and  calls  it ' '  The  Smallest  Newspaper  in  the 
World." 

Everybody  here  brags  about  what  they  are  doing. 
For  instance,  a  Liberty  Loan  campaign  is  launched. 
The  government  orders  millions  of  buttons ;  one  is  given 
to  everybody  who  buys  a  bond  and  they  pin  it  on  their 
coat  lapel,  like  a  medal.  To  have  bought  the  bond  is 
not  sufficient  for  them,  they  must  brag  about  it,  they 
must  boast,  they  must  show  that  they  have  bought  their 
bond.  The  Red  Cross  launches  a  campaign  and,  of 
course,  distributes  paper  banners,  so  that  every  one  who 
gives  a  dollar  can  put  one  in  his  window.    If  in  a  house 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       211 

there  is  one  person  who  has  given  a  dollar  to  the  Red 
Cross,  one  cross  is  gummed  to  the  window-pane ;  if  two 
persons  have  each  given  a  dollar,  two  crosses  are  pasted 
in  the  window,  and  so  on.  In  some  of  these  windows  I 
saw,  alongside  two  or  three  crosses,  the  sign  "100%," 
and  when  I  asked  what  this  stood  for,  I  was  told  that 
it  meant  that  every  one  in  the  house  had  given  a  dollar. 
For  the  families  of  those  who  have  gone  to  war  they 
have  invented  what  is  called  "a  service  flag"  on  which 
a  red  star  is  depicted  for  each  man  in  the  family  who 
has  gone  to  war  and  a  golden  star  for  each  man  who  has 
died  in  the  service  of  the  country.  Windows  display 
these  flags  to  acquaint  each  passerby  with  the  fact  that 
a  member  of  the  family  has  gone  to  the  war;  they  are 
also  carried  on  automobiles.  Not  long  ago  I  saw  the 
window  of  a  private  house  converted  into  a  show-case 
like  those  in  shops.  In  it  were  exhibited  not  only  the 
service  flag,  but  the  letters  that  the  young  man  of  the 
house  had  sent,  postal  packages  and  a  German  helmet 
that  he  had  captured  from  the  Prussians. 

I  cannot  think  what  they  do  in  the  schools  of  this 
country,  since  no  culture  or  manners  are  taught.  Their 
only  object  appears  to  be  that  of  preparing  the  in- 
dividual to  make  the  dollar:  aggressiveness  in  business. 
On  no  account  would  I  consent  to  have  my  children 
educated  here. 

I  do  not  know  the  schools,  colleges  and  universities 
of  this  country,  except  by  their  outside  appearance,  by 
their  buildings,  which  are  generally  magnificent.  But 
if  I  may  judge  by  their  produce,  I  think  we  have  nothing 
to  envy  in  the  American  educational  system. 

There  is,  however,  an  aspect  which  revolted  me  from 
the  first  moment  I  saw  the  pupils  coming  from  schools, 


212      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

whether  it  be  an  elementary  or  high-school ;  I  mean  co- 
education. Boys  and  girls  not  only  attend  the  same 
school,  but  they  attend  the  same  classes  and  sit  on  the 
same  benches. 

This  promiscuity  of  the  sexes  in  schools  robs  woman 
of  her  charm,  it  makes  her  masculine.  Hence  the  reason 
why  woman  in  this  country  has  acquired  so  many 
features  that  are  exclusively  masculine  elsewhere.  In 
almost  all  homes  the  men  get  up  from  the  table  after 
dinner  to  wash  the  dishes  and  to  occupy  themselves  with 
other  domestic  details  exclusively  feminine.  To  see  men 
in  the  parks  wheeling  a  perambulator,  or  carrying  the 
baby  in  their  arms  while  the  wife  walks  at  their  side 
carrying  the  dog,  is  a  common  scene  in  the  cities  of 
this  country.  Of  course  you  know  that  a  servant  here  is 
almost  a  rara  avis,  and  that  the  owner  of  an  automobile 
can  seldom  afford  to  keep  a  chauffeur. 

It  being  impossible  to  have  a  servant,  man  is  one  in 
this  ' '  womanocracy. ' ' 

Man  here  occupies  an  inferior  position.  In  other 
countries  the  question  is  discussed  as  to  whether  a 
woman  is  intellectually  man's  equal.  Not  here,  where 
this  controversy  is  old  already.  The  question  discussed 
here  now  is  whether  man  is  intellectually  on  a  level  with 
woman.  The  following  joke,  which  illustrates  this  point 
of  view  in  American  life,  I  read  the  other  day  in  a 
newspaper : 

Professor  Phirstboy  prided  himself  upon  his  advanced 
and  enlightened  views  concerning  women  and  their  place 
in  the  scheme  of  things: 

He  sat  next  to  a  very  clever  woman  at  a  little  dinner 
the  other  night,  and  in  reply  to  a  remark  of  hers  ex- 
claimed : 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       213 

"My  dear  lady,  I  go  further  than  believing  in  woman 
suffrage;  I  maintain  that  man  and  woman  are  equal  in 
every  way." 

"Oh,  professor!"  said  the  lady  very  sweetly;  "now 
you  flatter  yourself." 

Of  course.  Just  imagine  the  bold  professor  placing 
himself  on  a  level  with  woman. 

This  difference  in  habits  extends  to  all  the  aspects  of 
life.  The  menu  of  the  Yankee  house  is  simply  unbear- 
able for  us.  They  eat  stuffed  turkey  with  cranberry 
sauce;  I  have  been  served  in  hotels  with  artichokes 
cooked  in  cinnamon;  they  put  sugar  on  lettuce  and  to- 
matoes; and  all  the  rest  in  the  same  style. 

This  difference  in  the  way  of  living  is  extended  to  the 
houses  themselves.  Very  often  there  can  be  seen  in 
the  windows  of  the  restaurants  here  a  compact  pile  of 
unopened  oysters  with  large  pieces  of  ice  on  top  and 
underneath.  That,  I  think,  is  a  symbol  of  a  Yankee 
city.  The  men  are  piled  up,  one  on  the  other,  in  their 
enormous  houses,  with  a  room  for  each  family,  like 
oysters  in  calcareous  shells,  without  any  of  them  having 
relations  with  their  neighbors  or  knowing  anything 
about  them.  Even  the  ice  is  a  symbol:  a  Yankee  city 
is  a  refrigerator,  the  souls  are  frozen. 

Here  they  are  determined  to  do  away  with  prostitu- 
tion, and  the  traffic  is  illegal  in  nearly  all  States  of  the 
Union.  This  constitutes  a  radical  departure  from  the 
wise  traditions  of  continental  Europe,  adopted  in  our 
country  and  in  all  Latin  America. 

Particularly  in  Chicago  a  pitiless  campaign  is  being 
waged  against  women  of  easy  virtue.  A  young  country- 
man of  ours  told  me  how,  when  walking  one  day  in 
Michigan  Avenue,  a  fairly  good  looking  girl  eyed  him 


214      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDEBSTANDING 

suggestively.  He  reciprocated  the  look  and  invited  her 
to  take  something  at  a  restaurant,  as  if  he  were  on  a 
Paris  Boulevard.  The  girl  accepted,  and  after  supper  he 
asked  her  to  accompany  him  to  a  hotel.  This  invitation 
was  also  accepted  by  the  young  woman,  but  no  sooner 
were  they  alone  in  the  room  when  she  showed  him  her 
detective's  badge  and  marched  him  off  to  prison,  from 
which  he  escaped  only  on  payment  of  a  fine  for  having 
encouraged  prostitution.  Did  you  ever  see  such  a 
thing?  Male  detectives  are  also  on  the  watch  for  girls 
guilty  of  the  same  misdemeanor. 

They  do  not  understand  here  that  legalized  prostitu- 
tion is  a  necessary  evil,  tolerated  for  the  purpose  of 
abating  a  much  greater  evil :  the  furtive  prostitution  of 
the  home,  of  the  daughter  of  honorable  parents,  who 
runs  the  risk  of  seduction  by  the  beast  that  is  in  man, 
and  which  they  think  here  can  be  curbed  in  defiance  of 
the  law  of  nature. 

This  is  another  world  and  certainly  not  a  superior  one. 
It  is  a  world  eminently  inferior.  Here  one  does  not  live 
— one  exists.  I  do  not  know  what  grounds  Latin  Ameri- 
can admirers  of  this  country  have  for  praising  this  coun- 
try at  the  expense  of  our  own  countries.  The  following 
is  by  an  Argentine,  Alfredo  Colmo,  taken  from  his  book, 
"The  Countries  of  Latin  America,"  and  cited  by  Pro- 
fessor William  R.  Shepherd,  professor  at  Columbia 
University : 

"What  has  the  United  States  in  common  with  the 
countries  of  Latin  America?  Very  little:  the  incidental 
fact  of  its  geographical  location  in  the  same  hemisphere, 
and  the  external  circumstance  that  it  became  independ- 
ent at  almost  the  same  time.  .  .  .  What,  then,  does  it 
offer  by  way  of  unlikeness?  Nearly  everything,  and  in 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS      215 

terms  so  disparate  that  they  are  but  little  less  than 
diametrically  the  opposite  of  one  another.  Details  and 
secondary  matters  apart,  the  contrasts,  in  which  those 
countries  never  hold  the  place  of  vantage,  are  the  fol- 
lowing: populousness  and  uninhabitedness ;  wealth  and 
misery;  deeds  and  words;  activity  and  atrophy;  educa- 
tion and  inculture ;  industry  and  politicalism ;  commerce 
and  militarism;  order  and  impulsiveness;  legality  and 
defiance  of  law;  free  will  and  arbitrariness;  morality 
and  egotism;  truth  and  falsehood;  principles  and  men; 
railways  and  mules ;  civilization  and  stagnation  and  even 
barbarism ;  liberty  and  slavery,  etc. ' ' 

These  are  the  words  of  Senor  Colmo,  and  they  are 
surely  the  limit.  Writers  are  needed  who  will  defend 
Latin  America  instead  of  reviling  it.  Do  people  travel 
on  mules  from  Santiago  to  Buenos  Aires  or  on  a  railroad 
as  modern  as  that  from  Chicago  to  New  York?  Have 
we  not  erected  high  upon  the  Andes  a  Christ  at  whose 
feet  we  tell  the  world  that  the  Andes  mountains  will  first 
crumble  before  the  peace  can  be  broken  between  the 
great  countries  that  the  mountain  range  separates?  Is 
not  Buenos  Aires  growing  more  rapidly  than  New  York  ? 
Have  we  not  writers,  sculptors  and  musicians  greater 
than  those  of  the  United  States? 

I  know  not  why  we  have  taken  into  our  head  lately  to 
send  our  teachers  to  this  country  to  look  for  inspiration 
from  the  Yankee  methods  of  education.  We  have  noth- 
ing to  learn  here  and  we  could  certainly  teach  them  a 
great  deal.  Our  natural  bond  of  union  is  with  Europe. 
Thence  our  politicians,  our  writers  and  our  artists  drew 
their  inspiration.  There  is  nothing  more  opposed  to 
our  idiosyncrasy  than  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the  Yankee 


216      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

and  it  is  absurd  for  us  to  pretend  to  learn  their  methods 
of  educating  the  future  generations. 


Your  husband  who  adores  you. 


The  perusal  of  this  letter  angered  Miss  Jones  for  half 
an  hour.  Her  first  impulse  was  to  reply  with  heat,  but 
true  to  her  conviction  that  a  calm  statement  of  her  case 
would  best  serve  her  purpose,  she  held  the  insulting 
letter  over  until  the  following  day,  when  her  comments 
took  form  in  these  words : 

Madam : 

Your  husband  is  shocked  at  finding  in  general  very 
little  culture  among  the  persons  with  whom  it  has  fallen 
to  his  lot  to  associate  in  our  country. 

It  happens  that  your  husband  himself,  who  is  eminent 
in  your  country,  who  has  had  a  careful  University 
education,  who  has  traveled  in  Europe,  who  has  de- 
voted a  great  deal  of  time  to  reading  in  foreign  lan- 
guages, and  who  possesses  a  more  than  ordinary  general 
culture,  will  naturally  not  often  find  people  who  have 
the  same  degree  of  culture  as  he.  I  even  agree  that  it 
would  be  easier  for  him  to  find  in  Chile,  your  country, 
persons  of  high  culture  than  in  my  country.  The 
reason  is  very  simple:  there  he  has  his  circle  of  intel- 
lectual friends,  of  choice  minds  with  which  he  is  in 
daily  contact;  here  he  meets  at  random  with  all  kinds 
of  people.    There  he  is  in  his  own  atmosphere ;  here  he 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       217 

is  transplanted.  Very  often  the  manager  of  a  bank  with 
whom  one  talks  at  a  dinner  may  have  been  during  all 
his  early  youth  a  humble  worker  to  whom  the  exceptional 
opportunities  that  our  democracy  offers  suffice  to  enable 
him  to  overcome  economic  difficulties,  specializing  his 
studies  in  the  line  he  needed  most  for  his  advancement. 

In  your  country,  madam,  as  in  all  Latin  America, 
there  is  a  small  number  of  persons  who  are  very  cul- 
tured, but  there  is  an  immense  mass  of  the  population 
quite  uneducated,  and  when  speaking  of  the  culture  of  a 
country  we  must  do  so  in  just  the  same  way  as  when 
speaking  of  its  wealth.  In  the  latter  case  not  only 
are  the  millions  of  the  millionaires  counted,  but  also 
the  cents  of  the  poor;  the  sum  total  of  wealth  is 
estimated.  Considering  things  in  this  way— which  is 
the  only  right  way  to  discuss  them  when  treating  of 
democracies — it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  culture  of 
the  United  States  is  enormously  superior  to  that  of 
Latin  America. 

On  the  other  hand,  your  husband,  being  a  Chilean, 
is  astonished  at  the  ignorance  of  the  people  with  whom 
he  speaks  regarding  the  geography  of  his  country;  but, 
do  you  think  that  your  countrymen  are  very  familiar 
with  the  geography  of  the  world?  Do  you  think  that 
I  could  not  name  for  you,  and  other  Latin  Americans, 
cities  with  a  population  of  half  a  million  of  which  you 
have  not  even  heard?  Has  not  the  news  of  the  world 
war  shown  us  all  our  supreme  ignorance  of  the  world's 
geography  ? 

The  truth  is,  that  man  all  over  the  world  is  still  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  things  that  he  does  not  see,  that  he 
does  not  smell  and  that  he  does  not  touch.  The  things 
he  sees,  smells  and  touches  he  knows  more  or  less  well, 


218      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

and  when  he  leaves  his  environment  he  is  astonished 
that  men  who  live  in  other  surroundings  are  not  familiar 
with  the  things  that  he  knows  from  childhood.  "We  na- 
tions live  in  a  shell,  like  the  oyster.  The  ignorance  of 
Latin  America  about  our  country  is  as  supine  as  our 
ignorance  about  Latin  America. 

However,  there  is  a  world  of  difference  between  this 
last  statement  and  admitting  that  superficiality  is  the 
dominant  note  in  our  country.  I  do  not  want  to  make 
offensive  comparisons  with  Latin  America,  but  the  indi- 
cations are  all  that  words  mean  there  more  than  ideas, 
form  more  than  things..  Our  universities  are  serving  as 
a  model  of  inspiration  to  Europe.  The  intellectual  pro- 
duction of  our  present  university  professors  is  of  in- 
estimable importance.  In  no  country  of  the  world  has 
the  national  task  of  study,  in  all  its  branches,  been 
taken  care  of  with  more  ardor  than  in  my  country. 

In  no  country  are  there  so  many  libraries  as  here. 
Between  the  years  1775  and  1800  there  were  thirty 
public  libraries  in  my  country;  between  1800  and  1825 
there  were  one  hundred  and  seventy-nine ;  between  1825 
and  1850  there  were  five  hundred  and  fifty-one ;  between 
1850  and  1875  there  were  twenty-two  thousand  and 
forty.  To-day  it  can  truly  be  said  that  there  is  no  one  in 
the  United  States  who  does  not  live  near  some  library. 
And  these  libraries  have  each  day  more  and  more  read- 
ers, and  each  day  sees  an  increase  in  the  number  of 
serious  books,  not  novels,  circulated  by  them. 

My  country  also  has  a  real  national  institution  in  its 
open  forums  where  public  lectures  are  given,  generally 
with  the  right  of  free  discussion;  and  statistics  tell  us 
that  each  year  one  person  out  of  eleven  of  our  popula- 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       219 

tion  attends  these  lectures  where  all  the  vital  problems 
of  the  day  are  discussed. 

It  is  true  that  our  country  has  not  produced  literary 
geniuses  of  the  caliber  of  Shakespeare,  Cervantes, 
Moliere  or  Dante.  Neither  has  Latin  America.  I  think 
that  this  is  because  each  of  the  two  continents  has  a 
literature  which  is  a  branch  of  that  of  the  mother 
country  and  which  has  not  as  yet  become  perfectly  ripe. 
Neither  have  Canada  and  Australia  produced  literary 
geniuses  who  have  dazzled  the  world  j  but  it  would  have 
been  enough  for  your  husband  to  have  brought  to  mind 
the  figures  of  William  James,  Emerson,  Whittier  or 
Whitman,  to  have  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  say 
that  Eodin  would  not  have  been  able  to  find  here  a 
model  for  his  Thinker. 

However,  I  must  admit  that  in  your  institutions  of 
secondary  education  wider  general  instruction  is  given 
than  in  ours.  You  impart  more  knowledge;  you  fill 
the  pupils'  heads  with  more  data,  you  know  more  about 
world  history ;  and  when  I  say  you,  I  refer  to  the  small 
part  of  the  population  that  attends  school.  We  have 
put  more  emphasis  in  the  formation  of  character.  Our 
schools  give  an  education  j  yours  give  instruction.  There 
word  has  been  deified;  here  action  has  been  deified. 

As  for  our  exaggerated  love  of  sport:  the  baseball 
game  which  your  husband  saw  in  Chicago  was  a  con- 
test quite  naturally  exciting  the  enthusiasm  he  de- 
scribed, because  it  was  played  in  order  to  establish  who 
were  the  champions  of  the  country.  We  have  a  love 
for  sport  of  all  kinds  and,  in  my  opinion,  this  partiality 
is  a  virtue  rather  than  a  vice,  whatever  may  be  the  ex- 
tremes of  enthusiasm  and  delight  to  which  the  meeting 
of  the  champions  lead  the  people.     There  is  something 


220      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

finer  in  that  baseball  game  than  in  a  bull  fight  or  in  a 
horse  race  where  fortunes  are  at  stake.  Sport,  the  edu- 
cation of  the  animal  in  man,  is  a  part  of  our  program 
of  national  education. 

Have  we  not  the  social  refinement  to  which  your  hus- 
band is  accustomed?  Are  we  uncouth  in  our  manners? 
Of  course,  I  believe  that  there  are  very  many  people  in 
my  country  as  refined  as  the  most  exclusive  society  of 
Latin  America;  but  I  must  admit  also  that  in  the  so- 
called  upper  classes  persons  of  bad  manners  are  found, 
which  is  rarely  the  case  among  the  privileged  classes  in 
the  countries  of  Latin  America. 

Why?  For  a  very  simple  reason  more  to  our  credit 
than  to  our  disrepute.  I  picture  your  husband,  madam, 
as  the  prototype  of  the  well  bred  man  of  savoir  faire 
and  distinguished  and  exquisite  refinement.  He  learned 
that  from  the  cradle,  he  inherited  it  from  his  father, 
from  his  grandfather  and  his  great-grandfather,  and 
he  passes  it  on  to  his  children,  grandchildren  and  great- 
grandchildren. There  is  hardly  any  interchange  in  the 
social  layers.  The  rich  and  distinguished  man  of  to- 
day is  the  son,  grandson  and  great-grandson  of  rich 
and  distinguished  men  of  the  past. 

You  will  agree  with  me,  however,  that  leaving  those 
privileged  classes  and  descending  in  the  social  scale 
until  we  reach  the  laundress,  the  bricklayer  and  the 
day-laborer,  the  manners  we  find  are  very  different. 
If  there  existed  in  your  country  the  facilities  enjoyed 
in  mine  for  the  poor  to  obtain  the  best  economic  and 
social  positions,  you  would  discover  that  refinement, 
distinction  in  manners  and  aristocracy  of  movements 
Would  not  be  a  characteristic  feature  among  all  people 
of  the  upper  classes. 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       221 

It  is  this  stability  of  caste  in  the  countries  of  Latin 
America,  and  the  unrestricted  field  for  the  advance- 
meat  of  competence  in  the  ranks  of  our  democracy, 
Which  accounts  for  the  fact  that  there  aristocracy  has  a 
stamp  of  distinction,  while  here  the  man  of  good  educa- 
tion can  be  seen  side  by  side  with  the  unpolished  man 
Who  has  succeeded  economically  and  socially. 

That  the  man  of  my  country  is  discourteous  towards 
Woman  I  do  not  believe.  Your  husband  should  not 
confound  our  habits  of  business  life  with  our  habits 
of  social  life.  The  American  does  not  remove  his  hat 
in  the  elevator  of  an  office  building,  even  if  there  are 
ladies  present,  but  he  uncovers  in  the  elevator  of  a 
hotel. 

I  have  always  heard,  madam,  this  accusation  made 
by  Latin  Americans  and  Europeans  that  our  men  are  not 
very  gentlemanly  or  courteous  towards  women.  In 
these  notes  to  the  letters  of  your  husband,  madam, 
I  have  made  an  effort  to  appear  as  little  chauvinist e 
as  possible,  but  now  I  cannot  resist  the  impulse  of  say- 
ing that  the  man  of  my  country  is  the  most  courteous 
in  the  world,  the  most  gentlemanly  towards  women. 

Your  husband  makes  fun  of  the  husband  who  wheels 
a  perambulator  through  our  streets  or  who  carries  his 
child.  In  the  countries  of  Latin  America  I  have  noted 
that  the  suitor  always  carries  the  parcels  of  his  be- 
trothed when  walking  together,  but  I  did  not  always  see 
the  husband  carrying  his  wife's  packages. 

Is  it  not  true  courtesy  for  a  husband  to  help  his  wife 
in  housework  wThen  there  is  no  servant  in  the  house  ?  Is 
it  only  courteous  to  say:  "Pardon  me,  madam.  I  am 
delighted  to  make  your  acquaintance  ? ' '  Should  courtesy 
be  expressed  by  words  or  by  actions? 


222      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Does  your  husband  also  lay  to  the  debit  in  the  trial 
balance  of  our  progress  the  fact  that  it  is  difficult  to 
keep  a  servant  among  us?  Why  is  it  difficult?  Doubt- 
less in  some  cities  of  Latin  America  a  person  who  earns 
one  hundred  dollars  monthly  can  have  two  servants  in 
his  house,  and  one  who  earns  two  hundred  dollars  a 
month  can  have  four.  Why?  Because  the  labor  of 
servants  is  cheap.  And  why  is  it  cheap?  Because  of 
the  backwardness  of  those  countries.  In  some  cities  of 
Latin  America  a  servant  can  be  employed  for  a  dollar  a 
month.  But,  thank  God,  this  will  not  always  be  so ;  some 
day  there  will  not  be  in  Latin  America  a  single  woman 
whose  work  will  be  remunerated  at  the  rate  of  only  one 
dollar  a  month. 

Madam,  your  husband  describes  to  you  in  detail  the 
whole  scene  of  the  baseball  game  between  the  White 
Sox  and  the  Giants  in  Chicago  which  it  fell  to  his  lot 
to  witness.  Allow  me  to  describe  to  you  in  detail  another 
scene  that  I  was  privileged  to  witness,  where  those  base- 
ball players,  virile,  sound  in  body  and  soul,  gave  proof 
that  the  potency  of  the  muscle  is  not  at  variance  with 
the  highest  form  of  courtesy.  I  am  going  to  describe  to 
you  a  scene  that  I  was  fated  to  witness  and  which  will 
never  be  effaced  from  my  memory. 

It  was  on  the  high  seas,  in  the  Titanic,  a  powerful 
transatlantic  steamer,  the  sinking  of  which  was  doubt- 
less brought  to  your  notice  at  the  time. 

The  largest  ship  in  the  world  has  hurled  itself  at 
midnight  against  a  mountain  of  ice  while  the  last  notes 
of  a  waltz  are  still  vibrating  in  the  saloons,  when  the 
ladies  have  not  yet  discarded  their  silk  dresses  nor  the 
men  their  dress-coats.  The  steamer  has  called  for 
help  from  all  the  ships  within  its  wireless  zone;  but 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS      223 

there  is  no  time  to  wait  on  deck  until  they  come, 
because  the  ship  may  at  any  moment  dive  to  the  utter- 
most depths  of  the  abyss.  There  are  hardly  enough 
boats  to  save  one  out  of  every  six  of  the  crew.  The  wa- 
ter overwhelms  the  dynamos  and  all  lights  are  extin- 
guished. Communication  with  the  outside  world  has 
ceased;  the  Hertzian  waves  carry  no  more  messages. 
Feeble  minds  become  deranged,  but  in  the  midst  of  this 
confusion  and  panic  there  is  something  clear,  something 
which  shines  as  a  light;  it  is  a  cry  heard  on  all  sides, 
a  voice  in  command,  an  Anglo-Saxon  mandate  that  waves 
like  a  flag,  the  supreme  touch  of  courtesy:  "SAVE 
THE  WOMEN  FIRST!" 

That  order  is  obeyed;  the  scanty  places  in  the  few 
boats  are  to  be  filled  with  the  women  and  children  on 
board.  The  wife  descends,  followed  by  her  maid,  not 
by  her  husband. 

Astor,  the  millionaire,  leads  his  wife,  who  is  soon  to 
become  a  mother,  to  the  lifeboat ;  he  asks  the  officers  for 
permission  to  accompany  and  protect  her,  but  they  an- 
swer no,  not  while  a  woman  remains  to  be  saved.  The 
master  of  five  hundred  millions,  clad  in  his  dress-clothes, 
meekly  obeys,  steps  back  and  makes  way  for  a  woman 
immigrant,  a  barefooted  Syrian  woman,  who  obtains 
precedence  because  she  is  a  woman.  Astor  lights  a 
cigarette  and  says  good-by,  waving  his  hand  to  the  boat 
in  which  departs  his  wife,  young,  beautiful,  adored, 
while  he,  smiling,  remains  behind  awaiting  death. 

The  wife  of  Straus,  another  millionaire,  refuses  to 
enter  the  lifeboat  unless  her  old  husband  comes,  too. 
The  officers  request  the  old  man  to  go,  both  because  of  his 
advanced  age  and  because  it  is  the  only  way  to  save  his 
wife.     The  octogenarian  replies:    "I  am  old,  but  you 


224      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

cannot  take  away  my  prerogative  of  being  a  man."  So 
both  husband  and  wife  perish,  after  taking  care  that 
their  servant  is  saved. 

Practically  all  the  women  and  children  are  saved, 
with  the  exception  of  the  wives  who  would  not  abandon 
their  husbands,  preferring  to  die  with  them,  it  being 
impossible  for  any  human  force  to  drag  them  away. 
The  women  and  children  of  the  steerage  are  also  saved, 
while  the  magnates  and  millionaries  die  like  heroes, 
standing,  as  the  men  of  the  ship's  band,  knowing  they 
have  only  a  few  minutes  to  live,  fill  the  air  with  stirring 
music. 

One  individual,  overcome  by  panic,  loses  his  presence 
of  mind  and  tries  to  save  himself;  but  Major  Butt,  of 
the  United  States  army,  with  the  roughness  of  the  base- 
ball player,  catches  him  by  the  arm  and  throws  him 
stunned  to  the  deck. 

"lam  sorry,"  says  the  stern  soldier,  "but  the  last 
woman  in  the  steerage  must  leave  the  ship  before  you." 

Some  Chinese  coolies  save  themselves  in  the  darkness 
by  gliding,  crawling  like  snakes.  An  Italian  conceives 
the  idea  of  saving  his  life  and  losing  his  honor ;  he  dons 
some  of  his  wife's  clothes  and  descends  at  her  side.  The 
semidarkness  protects  the  fraud,  the  men  make  way  for 
him  and  aid  him  to  the  lifeboat.  If  he  had  put  on  a 
king's  crown  or  the  insignia  of  a  multi-millionaire  he 
would  not  have  attained  his  object,  because  the  voice 
of  command  was:  women  first;  even  the  ragged  immi- 
grants; after  them  the  men,  even  the  magnates  and 
millionaires. 

Many  of  the  latter  enter  the  boats  to  take  leave  of 
their  wives  and  return  to  the  ship,  which  they  know  will 
be  their  tomb. 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       225 

Guggenheim  remains  on  deck,  which  attracts  brave 
men  as  an  electric  light  attracts  butterflies.  He 
writes  home  a  few  lines :  "If  anything  happens  to  me, 
tell  my  wife  that  I  have  tried  my  best  to  do  my  duty." 

In  one  boat  seven  women  are  saved  who  are  return- 
ing from  their  honeymoon,  while  the  orange  blossoms 
with  which  they  went  to  the  altar  have  not  yet  withered. 
Their  husbands,  when  leaving  them  in  safety  while  they 
remain  to  die,  are  not  perturbed;  with  a  princely  smile 
they  seem  to  add  a  final  courtesy  to  their  sweet  bonds  of 
love. 

The  women  of  the  steerage  who  have  been  saved  say 
that  the  gentlemen  in  evening  dress  took  off  their  life- 
belts and  tendered  them  like  courtiers  who  offer  flowers 
to  a  queen. 

Miss  Edith  Evans  gives  up  the  last  seat  in  the  last 
boat  to  one  of  her  friends  and  remains  behind  to  die, 
saying  these  words  that  would  have  shaken  Sparta : 

' '  You  have  children. ' ' 

At  times  it  still  seems  to  me  that  I  am  in  that  boat  in 
which  thirty  of  us  women  were  saved,  and  think  I  hear 
the  voices  of  the  shipwrecked  in  the  distance.  So  long 
as  the  boat  was  able  to  hold  more,  we  picked  up  every- 
body we  could ;  but  soon  we  had  so  many  in  it  that  any 
added  weight  would  imperil  the  lives  of  us  all.  An 
old  man  swam  towards  us.  He  grabbed  hold  of  our 
boat;  but  he  was  told  that  if  he  tried  to  climb  in  we 
should  all  sink.     The  man  answered  quietly: 

"Very  well;  you  are  right.  May  God  bless  you/'  and 
he  drifted  away  from  the  boat,  going  to  die  like  an  un- 
known hero  under  the  waves  cold  as  the  pole. 

The  sun  of  the  following  morning  lit  up  that  sea  in 


226      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

which  hundreds  of  gentlemen  had  perished  so  that  the 
gallantry  of  the  men  of  our  race  might  not  perish. 

And  this  tragic  scene  that  I  have  described  to  you, 
madam,  is  one  page  in  a  book  of  thousands  of  pages 
that  could  be  written  to  define  the  courtesy  of  our 
men  for  us. 

Our  national  education  forms  the  character  of  the 
individual;  it  teaches  habits  that  have  already  been 
partly  converted  into  racial  features,  and  these  habits 
are  sterling  qualities  of  our  race. 

If  we  have  produced  the  word  "  bluff, "  almost  un- 
translatable into  Spanish,  as  your  husband  says,  we 
have  also  produced  other  words,  such  as  "a  square  deal" 
and  "fair  play/'  which  are  a  product  of  our  education 
and  which  are  even  more  difficult  to  translate  into  Span- 
ish than  the  word  "bluff."  From  this  circumstance  I 
should  not  infer,  madam,  that  "fair  play'7  and  "square 
deal"  do  not  exist  in  your  countries. 

"Bluff,"  as  a  national  feature,  is  something  inherent 
to  all  countries  that  have  attained  great  success  in 
their  collective  lives.  It  existed  among  the  Eomans. 
On  its  coins  and  stamps  France  has  pictured  the  French 
Republic  as  sowing  the  seeds  of  civilization  in  the  world. 
Germany  coined  the  world-known  phrase:  "Deutschland 
ueber  Alles."  " Chauvinisme"  is  a  French  word; 
"jingoism"  is  English. 

I  do  not  believe,  however,  that  bluff  is  a  character- 
istic feature  of  our  country.  Bluff,  of  a  collective  na- 
ture, is  closely  associated  with  clannishness  and  is  com- 
mon to  every  country,  to  every  State,  to  every  province, 
to  every  city,  to  every  political  party,  to  every  organiza- 
tion and  to  every  school ;  it  is  the  spirit  of  exhibiting  all 
those  things  which  are  an  honor  to  the  group  to  which 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       227 

one  belongs,  and,  of  course,  the  noise  that  is  made  by 
the  one  who  has  the  most  things  to  boast  of  attracts 
most  of  the  world's  attention.  It  is  not  that  I  am 
here  defending  bluff;  I  am  explaining  it. 

Yonr  husband  speaks  of  the  buttons  that  the  buyer 
of  a  Liberty  Bond  exhibits  on  his  coat  lapel,  of  the 
service  flag  and  of  the  Eed  Cross  insignia.  These  ex- 
hibitions are  made  principally  as  a  means  of  propaganda, 
as  a  mode  of  emulation  for  one's  neighbor,  or  just  for 
convenience,  so  that  solicitors  may  not  lose  time.  We 
have  not  the  craze  for  orders,  so  prevalent  in  Europe. 
I  have  read  that  in  France,  some  time  ago,  a  strike  of 
postmen  for  an  increase  in  salary  was  settled  by  the 
promise  that  the  Government,  unwilling  to  grant  the 
increase  asked  for,  would  award  a  medal  to  every  post- 
man. That  would  be  impossible  in  my  country.  More- 
over, neither  is  Latin  America  free  from  this  reverence 
for  orders  of  chivalry.  When  President  Manuel  Estrada 
Cabrera  of  Guatemala  received  from  the  French  Gov- 
ernment the  decoration  of  a  Grand  Officer  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor,  he  immediately  decreed  that  the  day  on  which 
he  received  this  honor  should  be  a  legal  holiday  for 
the  whole  country. 

We  do  not  believe,  madam,  that  legalized  prostitu- 
tion is  a  suitable  defense  for  the  honor  of  our  home 
life.  On  the  contrary,  legalized  prostitution  is  a  school 
for  vicious  men,  who  spread  their  vice  beyond  the  "red 
light"  district. 

Nor  do  we  believe  it  to  be  right  that  the  state 
should  recognize  the  profession  of  a  class  of  women 
as  slaves  of  vice  in  order  to  defend  other  women  in 
their  innocence.    To  the  state  the  purity  of  the  woman 


228      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

highly  placed  is  as  sacred,  and  not  more  so,  than  that  of 
the  woman  born  in  a  lower  stratum  of  society. 

"We  differ  from  Latin  America  and  continental  Europe 
in  our  way  of  facing  this  problem  because  the  countries 
of  which  these  continents  consist  are  autocracies,  whereas 
we  are  a  democracy.  Over  there  they  do  not  scruple 
to  sacrifice  women  of  the  poorer  classes  so  that  they 
shall  serve  as  instruments  of  pleasure  for  the  upper 
classes,  under  the  fictitious  pretext  of  defending  the 
virtue  of  the  privileged  classes.  Here  we  think  that 
the  virtue  of  the  poor  is  also  worthy  of  defense. 

If  I  were  asked  what  is  the  predominant  feature  of  our 
national  character,  I  should  answer,  without  hesitation: 
the  spirit  of  service. 

I  remember  that  when  on  my  travels  through  Latin 
America  I  was  walking  along  the  streets  of  a  city,  I 
noticed  how  a  woman  peddling  fruit  overturned  a  basket 
containing  peaches,  plums  and  apples.  I  hastened  to 
assist  her  in  picking  up  the  fruit ;  but  she,  never  suppos- 
ing that  a  lady  would  bend  down  to  help  her,  was  more 
easily  inclined  to  suspect  that  I  wished  to  deprive  her 
of  her  fruit,  and  exclaimed  angrily : 
1  'Leave  that  alone,  it  belongs  to  me." 
In  our  country  the  spirit  of  service  is  the  soul  of 
the  nation.  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  anybody  here 
who  is  not  directly  united  with  some  service  association. 
Many  make  their  spirit  of  serving  the  moving  principle 
of  their  lives. 

Now  this  good  will  to  serve  others  is,  in  my  opinion, 
the  supreme  manifestation  of  courtesy.  It  was  the 
spirit  of  service  that  induced  my  country  to  go  to  war, 
raising  an  army  of  six  million  men  and  spending  thirty 
billion  dollars,  to  help  their  brothers  in  democracy. 


EDUCATION,  CHARACTER  AND  HABITS       229 

I  think  that  the  famous  Argentine  writer  quoted  by 
your  husband  exaggerates  when  belittling  South  Amer- 
ica. That  is  a  great  continent  with  a  wonderful  future  j 
but  it  will  attain  its  future  triumphs  by  recognizing  the 
virtues  of  others  and  by  trying  to  take  advantage  of 
everything  suitable  without  destroying  its  own  tempera- 
ment and  idiosyncrasy. 

With  affectionate  regards, 

From  your  Friend  of  the  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER  XI 

PAN   AMERICANISM 

MISS  JONES  thought  that  the  Chicago  corre- 
spondent had  at  last  exhausted  the  fury  of  his 
indictment  against  the  country  which  sheltered 
him,  when  this  new  letter,  a  corollary  of  all  the  previous 
ones,  arrived  at  her  office : 

Chicago,  111., 1918. 

My  dearest: 


After  all  I  have  told  you  about  this  country,  after 
having  shown  you  that  this  people  is  entirely  different 
to  us  in  ideals,  education,  character  and  manners,  to 
the  extreme  of  being  antagonistic,  one  cannot  help 
feeling  surprised  that  the  peoples  of  Latin  America 
should  regard  with  pleasure  this  new  doctrine  so  much 
in  vogue  nowadays  in  the  new  continent;  I  mean,  Pan 
Americanism. 

What  is  Pan  Americanism?  The  union  of  the  two 
Americas,  the  Latin  and  the  Anglo-Saxon.  "What  is 
this  union  for  ?  We  have  nothing  in  common :  neither 
interests  nor  ideals.  Is  it  because  we  are  near  each 
other?  Argentina,  Uruguay,  Paraguay  and  Brazil  are 
nearer  to  Europe  than  to  the  United  States.  Europe 
sells  us  her  goods  cheaper,  which  is  quite  natural  since 
the  workmen  here  are  asking  double  wages  every  month ; 

230 


PAN  AMEBICANISM  231 

Europe  buys  more  from  us  than  does  the  United  States ; 
Europe  gives  us  her  ideals,  her  literature;  Europe  is 
the  source  of  all  culture,  and  we  should  drink  from 
the  original  source,  not  where  the  river  flows  into  the  sea 
with  all  the, refuse  it  has  brought  with  it  on  its  way. 

The  commercial  contact  of  the  two  Americas  is  harm- 
ful for  Latin  America,  for  it  is  an  established  social  law 
that  when  two  civilizations,  one  more  developed  in  a 
material  way  than  the  other,  come  into  contact,  the 
more  developed  people  tyrannize  over  the  less  de- 
veloped people,  and  the  latter  become  satellites  of  the 
former's  empire. 

Some  carry  their  Pan  Americanism  so  far  as  to  pro- 
pose that  all  the  countries  of  America  should  join  in  a 
Zollverein,  which  means  that  we  should  allow  the  manu- 
factures of  the  United  States  to  enter  free  of  duty,  and 
that  this  country  should  receive  our  produce  under  the 
same  conditions. 

With  childlike  candor  they  want  us  to  agree  to  the 
offer  made  in  the  stable  by  the  hen  to  the  horse : 

The  hen  pecked  the  oats  which  fell  from  the  horse's 
manger,  and  was  kept  on  the  hop  to  avoid  the  feet  of 
the  noble  charger  which  paid  no  attention  to  the  con- 
venience of  the  humble  fowl. 

One  day  the  hen  said  philosophically  to  the  horse: 

"Mr.  Horse,  I  have  something  to  propose  to  you. 
If  you  will  promise  not  to  tread  on  me,  I  promise  not 
to  tread  on  you." 

This  is  what  Pan  Americanism  means:  You,  Latin 
America,  may  send  us  your  natural  produce,  which  we 
shall  allow  to  enter  our  ports  free  of  duty;  and  we 
Americans  shall  send  you  our  pianos,  our  automobiles, 
our  typewriters  also  duty  free.     We  may  forgive  the 


232      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

hen  for  not  taking  into  consideration  that  her  foot- 
steps do  not  hurt  the  horse;  but  we  cannot  forgive 
the  United  States  for  making  us  this  offer  knowing  that 
we  are  not  manufacturing  countries,  while  in  sending 
them  our  raw  material,  such  as  coal,  iron,  copper,  wood 
and  cotton,  they  reap  the  benefit  by  returning  them  to 
us  in  the  form  of  manufactured  goods. 

One  of  the  most  intelligent  sociologists  of  the  United 
States,  Josiah  Strong,  in  one  of  his  books*  follows  the 
argument  of  Professor  Drummond,  who,  in  his  work 
"The  Ascent  of  Man,"  maintains  that  when  men  be- 
came sufficiently  intelligent  to  invent  a  tool  the  evo- 
lutionary development  of  the  hand  ceased. 

He  tells  us  that  the  more  we  gave  the  hand  to  do 
the  better  it  became  adapted  to  its  work.  The  hand 
continued  in  its  development  to  adapt  itself  to  all 
work  required  of  it.  But  the  fatal  day  came  (fatal  for 
the  development  of  the  hand)  when  man  invented  the 
first  tools.  Thereupon,  what  the  hand  did  and  learned 
to  do  better  every  time  began  to  be  done  by  auxiliary 
tools;  so  that  the  new  things  that  had  to  be  made 
brought  about  no  further  perfection  of  the  hand,  but 
rather  a  new  tool  or  the  improvement  of  those  already 
in  use.  Tools  are  the  prolongation  of  the  hands ;  levels 
do  the  work  which  the  forearm  did  before.  Hammers 
are  substitutes  for  the  fist;  knives  do  well  what  the 
nails  did  imperfectly;  pliers  are  the  fingers.  The  day 
when  the  cave-man  made  his  first  tool,  the  evolution  of 
the  hand  stopped.  In  the  course  of  the  successive  ages 
the  hand  might  have  arrived  at  a  stage  of  develop- 
ment where  many  things  which  cannot  now  be  made 
without  tools  could  have  been  made  by  the  hand  alone. 

Something  analogous  to  the  foregoing,  continues  Mr. 


PAN  AMERICANISM  233 

Strong,  may  be  applied  to  backward  races  when  placed 
in  touch  with  advanced  races.  The  manufacturing  coun- 
tries take  the  place  of  the  tools  with  regard  to  the  hand, 
which  here  represents  the  backward  countries ;  and  from 
the  moment  when  the  manufacturing  countries  begin  to 
supply  goods  to  the  backward  countries,  they  hold  up 
their  industrial  development. 

All  this  was  said  by  Mr.  Strong  to  establish  the  fact 
that  the  industrial  future  of  the  United  States  is  im- 
mense and  that  it  need  not  be  feared  that  the  backward 
markets  of  Latin  America  will  be  able  to  supply  them- 
selves from  their  own  resources. 

The  maiden  seeks  fragrance  and  beauty  in  the  flower, 
the  bee  and  the  humming  bird  their  daily  food.  We 
ourselves  see  in  Latin  America  the  cradle  of  our  life, 
the  couch  of  our  dreams,  all  that  is  most  sacred  and 
most  dear;  the  sons  of  this  other  America  see  here  a 
market.  Just  as  smoke  is  associated  with  fire,  gloves 
with  the  hand  and  shoes  with  the  feet,  so  the  Yankee 
thinks  of  Latin  America  as  a  market  for  his  produce. 

I  have  never  seen  a  Yankee  paper  in  which  the  ' '  end- 
less opportunities  of  the  Latin  American  market"  are 
not  spoken  of.  Public  lectures  are  held  day  after  day 
to  boost  the  trade  opportunities  of  Latin  America.  Every 
month  new  magazines  in  Spanish  appear,  which  are 
nothing  else  than  a  means  of  commercial  penetration, 
with  hundreds  of  pages  of  advertisements  in  which  the 
excellence  of  their  chewing  gum  and  their  patent  medi- 
cines are  proclaimed. 

The  religious  campaigns  of  evangelical  propaganda, 
which  count  upon  the  help  of  business  men  who  give 
liberally  to  " evangelize' '  Latin  America,  are  really 
only  another  means  of  trade  penetration.    Inter- Ameri- 


234      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

can  conferences  and  congresses  are  also  nothing  but 
means  of  commercial  penetration  in  Latin  America. 
We  joyfully  welcome  these  peals  of  the  Pan  American 
bells,  without  thinking  that  we  are  only  giving  away 
part  of  our  sovereignty  by  so  doing. 

Pan  Americanism  is  the  bridal  robe,  decked  with 
immaculate  orange  blossoms,  with  which  the  colossal 
campaign  for  the  commercial  conquest  of  Latin  America 
by  the  United  States  is  covered.  But  this  is  not  a 
bride  who  wishes  to  marry  for  love,  but  for  interest. 

A  great  reception,  with  banquets  and  speeches,  is 
given  to  all  eminent  Latin  Americans  who  visit  this 
country.  There  is  in  New  York  a  ''Pan  American  So- 
ciety" to  which  belong  the  great  merchants,  manu- 
facturers and  bankers  who  do  business  with  Latin 
America.  The  purpose  of  this  society  is  to  offer  ban- 
quets to  representative  men  of  Latin  America  who  visit 
New  York.  There  are  many  business  houses  in  this 
country  which  maintain  an  official  staff  intrusted  with 
the  social  entertainment  of  their  clients  at  the  expense 
of  the  firm.  They  know  well  that  these  extra  attentions 
bring  orders  for  goods.  This  Pan  American  Society 
takes  the  place  of  such  a  diplomatic  staff  employed 
by  the  big  exporters ;  it  is  a  commercial  bait. 

The  foregoing  does  not  constitute  anything  dishon- 
orable. It  is  legitimate  that  the  United  States  should 
use  all  honest  means  within  its  reach  in  order  to  sell  as 
much  as  possible  to  our  countries;  but  I  object  to  the 
campaigns  disguised  with  the  incense  of  Pan  American- 
ism, for  here  the  interested  parties  make  believe  that 
Pan  Americanism  means  the  union  of  both  Americas, 
the  better  understanding  between  both  Americas,  mutual 
help  between  the  two  Americas,  whereas  it  really  stands 


PAN  AMERICANISM  235 

for  nothing  else  than  the  commercial  conquest  of  Latin 
America  by  the  United  States. 

To  show  yon  that  I  am  right  in  what  I  say,  I  will 
cite  the  case  of  the  Pan  American  Congress  which  was 
held  at  onr  capital.  The  American  delegates  to  the 
Congress  were  sociologists,  statisticians  and  diplomatists, 
who  came  with  the  intention  of  exploring  new  markets 
for  their  country.  One  of  them  was  Archibald  Cary 
Coolidge,  who  is  author  of  the  book  entitled:  "The 
United  States  as  a  "World  Power.' '  After  showing  in 
this  book  that  the  United  States,  looking  round  the 
world,  have  seen  that  Asia  and  Africa  are  monopolized 
by  European  countries,  which,  like  France  in  Madagas- 
car, have  taken  from  them  all  the  markets,  Cary  Coo- 
lidge says  that  "there  remained,  however,  two  regions 
where  the  Americans  believed  they  saw  splendid  pos- 
sibilities for  the  future.  But  to  make  the  most  of  these 
possibilities  they  must  take  decided  action.  In  the  re- 
publics of  Latin  America  there  was  no  highly  developed 
native  industry  to  be  feared  as  a  rival.  There  was  noth- 
ing but  the  competition  of  Europe,  which  had  too  long 
had  the  field  to  itself,  and  the  Americans  were  con- 
vinced that  they  could  meet  this  competition  victo- 
riously if  only  they  made  the  best  of  their  natural  ad- 
vantages. A  first  step  was  to  draw  closer  to  these  fel- 
low-republicans to  the  South,  for  the  benefit  of  all  con- 
cerned. This  led  to  the  policy  known  as  Pan  American- 
ism. 

"The  manufacturing  industries  of  the  United  States," 
he  says  further  on,  "have  developed,  and  are  develop- 
ing, at  such  a  rate  that  the  Americans  are  not  afraid 
to  meet  their  European  rivals  in  almost  any  branch  of 
trade.    It  was  to  be  expected  that  they  should  turn  their 


236      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

gaze  to  the  southern  half  of  their  own  hemisphere, 
where,  as  yet,  they  are  only  beginning  to  get  a  good 
commercial  footing,  but  where  the  future  appears  to 
offer  them  golden  opportunities.  "Why  should  the 
American  merchant  leave  this  splendid  field  to  be  ex- 
ploited by  the  Englishman  or  the  Germans?  Is  it  not 
the  plain  duty  of  his  government  to  aid  and  encourage 
his  enterprise  in  every  possible  way?" 

"In  South  America,"  he  adds  elsewhere,  "the  Ger- 
mans are  convinced  that  they  have  found  a  field  of  splen- 
did possibilities,  and  their  progress  in  recent  years  has 
been  startling  in  its  rapidity ;  but  to  South  America  the 
Americans  are  turning  much  of  their  attention,  and  with 
the  aid  of  Pan  American  sentiment,  they  hope  to  win 
the  first  place  for  themselves." 

The  United  States  sent  men  of  this  caliber,  men  who 
think  in  this  way,  to  form  part  of  the  Pan  American 
Scientific  Congress  in  our  country.  And  in  spite  of 
everything  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  be  duped. 

Here  they  have  made  of  the  Bible  an  adequate  text 
for  T;he  foundation  of  hundreds  of  religions,  each  of 
which  interprets  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  its  own  way. 
The  same  applies  to  Pan  Americanism:  to  the  vendor 
of  shoes  it  means  that  Latin  America  buys  his  foot- 
wear; to  the  maker  of  locomotives  it  means  that  Latin 
America  buys  his  engines.     That  is  all. 

Since  the  whole  problem  of  Pan  Americanism  is  a 
question  of  commercial  relations,  it  presents  itself  to  us 
in  this  form:  Does  it  suit  us  better  to  make  our  com- 
mercial relations  closer  with  the  United  States  or  with 
Europe  ? 

I  believe  that  closer  relations  with  the  United  States 
are  undesirable  because  this  country  is  too  absorbing 


PAN  AMERICANISM  237 

and  has  the  tendency  to  get  our  natural  resources  en- 
tirely into  its  power.  For  instance,  in  doing  a  fruit 
business  with  Central  America  they  have  not  been  satis- 
fied with  the  business  of  buying  and  selling,  but  have 
extended  their  operations  to  the  purchase  of  the  planta- 
tions. The  same  applies  to  the  iron  and  copper  of  Chile, 
to  the  copper  and  petroleum  of  Mexico  and  to  the  frozen 
meat  of  Uruguay  and  Argentina. 

We  are  responsible  for  this,  as  I  also  am  myself,  since 
I  am  in  treaty  to  sell  them  my  copper  deposits,  a  fact 
which  does  not  fail  to  lie  heavy  on  my  conscience. 

The  most  serious  matter,  however,  is  that  the  Yankee 
is  persuaded  that  his  flag  must  follow  his  business,  and 
having  manifold  interests  in  Latin  America,  he  is  in- 
clined to  meddle  with  its  internal  politics.  Nowadays, 
a  President  for  Mexico  or  for  any  country  of  Central 
America  cannot  be  elected  without  the  consent  of  the 
White  House,  which  is  for  us  the  Black  House.  Ac- 
cording to  the  measure  by  which  their  business  extends 
towards  the  South  their  political  influence  will  also  be 
extended,  and  some  day  they  will  be  dictating  our  eco- 
nomical policy  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the  Straits  of 
Magellan. 

Nothing  of  this  kind  occurs  with  regard  to  our  inter- 
change of  business  with  Europe,  and  therefore  we  should 
prefer  to  encourage  our  commercial  relations  with  Eng- 
land, France,  Spain,  Germany,  Italy  and  Belgium.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  our  duty  to  oppose  the  doctrine  of 
Pan  Americanism  with  that  of  lb  ero- Americanism. 
There  are  more  interests  in  common  between  Chile  and 
Uruguay,  between  Argentine  and  Colombia  and  be- 
tween Mexico  and  Peru  than  between  any  of  our  repub- 
lics and  the  United  States.     The  extraordinary  growth 


238      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

of  this  country  during  the  nineteenth  century  will  be  ex- 
celled by  the  growth  and  development  of  Latin  Amer- 
ica in  the  twentieth  century.  Ours  is  the  continent  of 
the  future.  We  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  inherit  a 
continent  with  vaster  natural  resources  than  any  other, 
and  we  shall  occupy  a  conspicuous  place  in  history  when 
we  are  able  to  harvest  the  accumulated  patrimony  of 
material,  intellectual  and  moral  treasure  derived  from 
twenty  centuries  of  Christian  civilization.  Old  Europe 
yields  us  already  solved  all  the  most  transcendental 
problems  of  mankind.  For  Latin  America  is  the  task 
of  observing,  choosing  and  applying  them,  according  to 
her  idiosyncrasy  and  her  temperament. 

The  New  World  will  have  an  Anglo-Saxon  civiliza- 
tion in  the  North  and  a  Spanish-American  civilization 
in  the  South.  Of  a  truth  these  civilizations  will  be  an- 
tagonistic, and  farseeing  men  of  South  America  should 
commence  to  prepare  their  countries  for  the  struggle  to 
come  by  uniting  them  in  spirit  for  a  common  purpose. 

Your  affectionate  husband, 


Soon  after  reading  this  letter,  Miss  Jones  found  on 
her  desk  a  communication  from  the  Chilean  lady  to  her 
husband  in  Chicago.  This  was  the  first  letter  of  the 
kind  she  had  seen,  which  is  not  surprising,  as  it  was  no 
part  of  her  duty  to  read  the  correspondence  from  Latin 
America;  but  the  censor  to  whom  the  letters  from  San- 
tiago, Chile,  were  generally  intrusted  for  examination, 
finding  Miss  Jones'  comments  on  the  first  letter  of  this 
series  inclosed,  sent  her  the  lady's  missive  for  examina- 
tion. 


PAN  AMERICANISM  239 

The  Chilean  landowner's  wife  wrote  almost  exclusively 
of  family  affairs,  occupying  only  one  paragraph  to  tell 
her  husband  how  interested  she  was  in  his  description 
of  American  ideals,  the  more  so  because  the  censor  had 
added  comments  to  all  topics  he  had  discussed. 

Once  more  Miss  Jones  was  on  the  point  of  writing  to 
the  Chicago  correspondent,  but  she  did  not  do  so.  She 
contented  herself  with  writing  a  reply  to  this  letter, 
just  as  she  had  done  with  regard  to  all  the  others,  and 
she  foresaw  that  this  would  be  the  last  one  which  would 
require  an  answer.     She  wrote: 

Madam : 

Your  husband's  present  letter  has  not  astonished  me 
in  the  least.  It  is  the  natural  corollary  of  all  the  pre- 
vious ones. 

If  you  have  tacitly  accepted  all  he  has  told  you  with- 
out having  weighed  in  your  mind  my  remarks,  it  is  but 
natural  for  you  to  look  with  displeasure  upon  the  grow- 
ing spread  of  Pan  American  ideals.  But  if  you  have 
quietly  meditated  on  my  notes  to  your  husband's  letters 
and  believe  I  am  right,  then  you  should  enthusiastically 
applaud  the  Pan  American  movement,  the  intellectual, 
moral  and  material  union  of  the  two  Americas. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  also  commercial  interests 
bound  up  in  this  movement;  this  is  one  aspect  of  Pan 
Americanism,  its  material  aspect.  But  it  is  not  its  only 
aspect,  nor  is  it  the  most  important. 

The  history  of  the  world  shows  us  man  in  a  state  of 
constant  moral  development.  This  moral  development 
can  be  measured  only  by  the  human  capacity  to  extend 
its  interest  and  its  love  from  merely  individual  limits, 
from  the  love  of  each  individual  for  himself,  to  love  for 


240      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

his  family,  his  people,  his  race  and  for  mankind.  The 
moral  growth  of  the  human  soul  is  its  expansion  towards 
a  greater  and  more  comprehensive  love.  The  primitive 
savage  took  care  of  himself  and  his  children,  in  their 
early  years.  It  was  a  great  moral  advance  when  he  be- 
came interested  in  the  well-being  of  his  tribe. 

As  man  advances,  his  interest,  his  affection  and  his 
love  expand.  The  present  epoch  shows  us  that  a  hun- 
dred million  men,  women  and  children  in  America  took 
so  seriously  the  happiness  of  men,  women  and  children 
deprived  of  their  rights  in  Old  Europe,  that  they  re- 
solved to  give  their  peace,  their  money  and  their  lives 
to  defend  these  far-away  victims. 

Societies  are  living  organisms,  but  much  more  com- 
plex than  the  individuals,  cells,  of  which  they  are  com- 
posed. Man  is  an  egoist  in  his  infancy.  You  probably 
have  noticed  that  your  children,  in  their  early  years,  are 
very  selfish.  This  is  due  to  the  instinct  of  conserva- 
tion. 

Societies  are  still  organized  beings  in  embryo  and  that 
explains  the  collective  egoism  of  nations ;  but  in  propor- 
tion as  a  country  progresses,  in  proportion  as  it  has  more 
confidence  in  itself  and  in  its  economic  and  moral  force, 
it  becomes  more  altruistic.  The  United  States  is  to-day 
the  most  altruistic  country  in  the  world.  Our  participa- 
tion in  the  present  war,  in  which  we  are  giving  our  blood 
and  money  for  justice  and  the  well-being  of  others,  is 
the  most  conclusive  proof  that  our  society  is  no  more  in 
an  embryo  state. 

The  day  seems  to  be  dawning  in  which  mankind  is  to 
have  a  collective  conscience,  is  to  have  a  soul,  and  in 
which  the  earth  is  going  to  be  a  single  social  organism, 
which  cannot  be  injured  at  one  extremity  without  the 


PAN  AMERICANISM  241 

commotion  and  instinct  of  defense  being  felt  at  the 
other. 

The  League  of  Nations  that  is  being  spoken  of  is  the 
alphabet,  that  is  beginning  to  be  sketched  of  this  new 
human  condition,  of  this  international  and  interconti- 
nental soul. 

And  this  new  internationalism  does  not  mean  the 
death  of  nationalism,  just  as  the  constitution  of  nations 
did  not  mean  the  death  of  individualism.  Furthermore, 
only  those  nations  are  strong  in  which  the  individual 
is  strong,  in  which  the  family  is  united.  The  greater 
assertion  of  each  individual,  the  cell  of  the  nation,  makes 
the  nation  itself  stronger;  and  the  greater  liberty  of  a 
country,  the  greater  assertion  of  a  country,  the  cell  of 
mankind,  would  make  the  society  of  nations  stronger. 

But  we  shall  arrive  very  slowly  at  this  union.  There 
still  are  principles  in  dispute.  There  are  several  classes 
of  mankind  in  the  world.  Before  having  a  sole  con- 
glomerate on  the  planet,  there  will  be  several  con- 
glomerates. And  in  the  final  fusion  of  these  conglom- 
erates the  strongest  will  prevail. 

On  the  fingers  of  one  hand  we  can  count  the  centuries 
of  European  civilization  in  America.  Here,  between  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  two  continents  exist  into  which 
Europe  could  fit  twice  over.  These  continents,  almost 
in  their  entirety,  claimed  their  right  to  constitute  inde- 
pendent nations  little  more  than  a  century  ago,  and  a 
score  of  countries  were  born  to  life  who  adopted — in  its 
general  lines — an  analogous  constitution  for  their  peo- 
ples, similar  ideas  as  standards  of  their  progress. 

For  a  century,  however,  these  twenty  nations  have 
been  isolated  among  themselves,  isolated  both  materially 
and  morally.     Each  one  of  them,  closed  up  in  a  narrow 


242  THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 
national  individualism,  has  busied  itself  with  develop- 
ing its  own  moral  and  material  entity  without  bothering 
much  about  the  fate  of  its  companions  of  the  continent 
And  all  have  grown  with  a  vertiginous  rapidity.  And 
they  will  grow  with  even  more  rapidity  in  the  Wture. 

The  problem  has  been  presented  to  the  thinkers  of  the 
two  Americas,  to  the  dreamers  of  the  future,  whether 
it  is  suitable  for  these  countries  to  continue  being  iso- 
lated in  their  struggle  for  progress,  or  whether  there  are 
advantages  in  a  material  and  spiritual  union  that  will 
make  the  two  Americas  a  conglomerate  of  related  na- 
tions, ready  to  aid  one  another  mutually  in  their  strug- 
gle for  progress.     The  United  States  has  one  hundred 
million  inhabitants;  Latin  America  also  has  one  hundred 
million.     At  the  end  of  the  present  century  the  two 
Americas  will  possibly  have  four  hundred  million  in- 
habitants.   Is  it  not  of  interest  for  the  whole  continent, 
for  all  mankind,  that  these  Americas  should  have  an 
analogous  purpose?    In  the  struggles  of  the  faraway 
Lure,  is  it  advisable  or  not  that  all  America  present  a 
single  front,  or  are  there  advantages  in  leaving  these 
countries  to  sow  to-day  the  seed  of  the  discords  of  to- 

mTfirm?ly  believe  that  it  is  for  the  best  interests  of  each 
one  of  these  countries  to  observe  a  policy  of  close  union, 
of  intimate  community  of  ideas,  a  policy  of  Pan  Ameri- 


canism. 


Your  husband  thinks  that  Pan  Americanism  m  this 
country  is  <f  drug,  a  patent  medicine  to  benumb  Lata 
American  initiative,  so  that  the  United  States  may  be 
able  to  freely  develop  a  policy  of  commercial  and  terri- 
torial expansion  in  the  rest  of  America. 

He  arrives  at  this  conclusion  because  Pan  American- 


PAN  AMERICANISM  243 

ism  generally  goes  hand  in  hand  with  the  idea  of  inter- 
American  commerce.  But  your  husband  does  not  take 
into  account  that  commerce  means  mutual  service.  Our 
manufacturers  and  merchants  do  not  try  to  sell  to  Latin 
America  what  Latin  America  does  not  want  to  buy, 
what  Latin  America  does  not  need.  Everything  in  life 
is  commerce,  that  is:  interchange,  material  interchange, 
intellectual  interchange,  moral  interchange. 

And  it  is  these  three  interchanges  that  unite  countries 
more  closely.  The  university  professor,  the  lecturer, 
the  Latin  American  student  who  comes  to  our  universi- 
ties, the  magazines  in  Spanish  that  are  published  here, 
carry  our  ideas  to  the  countries  of  Latin  America.  The 
church  and  the  school,  and  the  hospital  sent  there  by 
our  missionaries  are  the  base  for  our  moral  interchange. 
In  these  two  instances  we  give  and  we  receive;  we  teach 
and  we  learn.  The  Christ  that  you  Chileans  and  Ar- 
gentines have  erected  on  the  top  of  the  Andes,  is  better 
known  in  our  public  schools  than  in  yours,  and  its  mean- 
ing is  a  lesson  for  us  in  international  ethics.  The  His- 
panic Society  of  America  is  a  center  of  Pan  American 
comprehension,  without  any  commercial  aspect. 

Moreover,  why  not  the  material  interchange  also?  We 
want  to  buy  from  you  what  you  produce  and  we  need; 
we  want  to  sell  you  what  we  produce  and  you  need. 
Coffee,  cotton,  saltpeter  and  sugar  are  needed  by  us,  and 
you  have  them  in  excess.  Our  manufactured  articles 
are  needed  by  you  and  we  produce  them  in  excess;  but 
this  commerce  of  raw  materials  against  manufactured 
articles— your  husband  says,  quoting  Josiah  Strong— is 
going  to  hold  back  the  industrial  development  of  Latin 
America.  No,  madam,  that  is  an  obvious  error.  If 
that  were  true,  my  country  would  not  have  become  an 


244      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 
industrial  one  from  the  moment  when  it  was  in  contact 
with  industrialized  Europe. 

Do  not  forget  that  the  commerce  of  Latin  America 
with  my  country  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  agents 
for  fostering  the  development  of  industries  in  those 
countries.  Take,  for  example,  the  exportation  of  ma- 
chinery to  Latin  America.  Our  machinery  for  making 
footwear,  has  it  not  developed  the  industry  of  footwear 
there !  Our  machinery  for  woodworking,  has  it  not  de- 
veloped the  furniture  industry?  These  examples  can 
be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

It  is  an  error  made  by  many— among  them  Josian 
Strang— to  believe  that  the  industrial  development  of 
Latin  America  would  not  be  for  the  best  interests  of  my 
country     The  industrialized  United  States  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  imports  much  more  from  Europe  than  the 
agricultural  United  States  of  the  first  years  of  our  na- 
tional life.     If  Latin  America  industrializes  itself,  it 
will  rapidly  double  its  population  and  will  raise  the  liv- 
ing conditions  of  its  inhabitants.  Its  consumption  would 
multiply  in  geometrical  proportion.     A  new  industry 
creates  others  and  others  and  others.    If  Latin  America 
were  to-day  as  industrialized  as  my  country,  the  com- 
mercial interchange  between  both  continents  would  be  at 
least  a  hundred  times  greater.     The  above  does  not  mean 
that  Latin  America  should  not  try  to  foster  the  develop- 
ment of  its  favorable  industries,  by  means  of  customs 
tariffs,  as  we  have  done  ourselves. 

I,  madam,  have  no  personal  interest  in  the  commercial 
interchange  between  my  country  and  Latin  America. 
But  I  believe  in  the  advantages  to  be  gained  from  this 
interchange  because  I  know  that  commercial  relations 
unite  peoples.    You  in  Chile  have  had,  until  lately,  most 


PAN  AMERICANISM  245 

of  your  commerce  with  Germany  and  England,  and  a 
consequence  of  that  commercial  interchange  has  been 
that  you  have  imported  German  teachers  for  your  pub- 
lic schools  and  your  army,  and  English  officers  for  your 
navy.  You  have  hardly  had  commercial  relations  with 
Spain  and,  in  spite  of  its  being  the  mother  country, 
you  have  not  looked  to  her  for  inspiration  in  your  na- 
tional development. 

Without  doubt,  your  husband  is  right  when  he  says 
that  all  the  Latin  American  republics  should  unite  in  a 
common  ideal.  When  we  speak  of  Pan  Americanism 
we  do  not  mean  the  union  of  each  republic  of  the  other 
America  with  the  United  States  and  their  isolation 
among  themselves.  We  mean  the  union  of  each  Latin 
American  republic  with  each  one  of  the  other  republics 
of  America ;  we  mean  the  union  of  all  the  free  countries 
of  the  whole  American  continent. 

But  it  is  rash  and  absurd  to  speak  of  Ibero-Ameri- 
canism  in  opposition  to  Pan  Americanism,  to  speak  of 
the  union  of  the  Ibero-American  republics  to  oppose 
the  United  States  as  a  danger  of  the  future.  In  the 
notes  to  your  husband's  previous  letters  I  think  I  have 
shown  that  there  is  no  reason  to  fear  discords  of  any 
kind  between  the  two  continents,  and  that  if  some  shad- 
ow is  thrown  on  the  horizon,  it  is  our  duty  to  make  the 
sky  clear  by  means  of  mutual  understanding  and  intelli- 
gent comprehension.  Europe  has  not  solved  for  us  all 
problems,  as  your  husband  believes.  On  the  contrary, 
Europe  will  have  to  receive  from  this  New  World  the 
solution  of  many  of  her  own  problems.  She  will  have  to 
ask  our  aid,  as  she  has  done  already.  And  it  is  Amer- 
ica, united,  fresh,  luxuriant,  strong  and  intelligent,  and 
not  America  at  variance,  weakened,  steeped  in  blood 


246      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

and  hate,  that  will  stretch  its  hands  towards  the  Old 
World  to  pay  the  sacred  debt  that  we  contracted  with 
lier  on  receiving  her  inheritance  and  her  civilization. 

I  am  more  than  pleased  that  I  have  undertaken  the 
task  of  answering  your  husband's  letters.  They  have 
hurt  me,  I  cannot  deny  that,  but  I  have  understood  that 
they  are  the  crystallization  of  an  estimate  very  general 
in  Latin  America.  What  encourages  me  is  the  thought 
that  perhaps  you  have  meditated  deeply  on  these  prob- 
lems and  that  you  have  duly  appreciated  all  I  have  told 
you. 

I  must  confess  that  I  have  many  times  been  tempted 
to  write  to  your  husband.  You  cannot  imagine  how 
desirious  I  am  to  know  him,  how  I  wish  to  converse  with 
him  regarding  all  these  grave  problems. 

I  want  to  ask  his  pardon  personally  for  having  in- 
truded in  his  correspondence  and  to  explain  to  him  that 
I  have  been  animated  by  the  best  intentions.  I  am  sure, 
madam,  that  you  have  understood  my  purpose  and  that 
you  have  read  with  sympathy  everything  I  have  had  to 
say. 

Your  Friend  of  tlie  Other  Continent. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  UGHT  OF  TRUTH 

THE  anonymous  hero  of  our  story,  who  was  writ- 
ing from  Chicago  to  his  wife  in  Santiago  during 
part  of  the  year  1918,  finally  received,  very 
late,  the  news  that  his  letters — in  which  he  had  com- 
mented unfavorably  on  men  and  things  in  the  United 
States — had  been  supplemented  by  notes  from  the  censor 
in  New  York. 

He  received  in  November,  at  about  the  time  when  the 
armistice  was  signed,  the  censor's  criticisms  of  his  two 
first  letters,  and  by  each  following  steamer  he  continued 
to  receive,  one  after  the  other,  the  further  comments  on 
his  letters  to  his  wife. 

Of  course,  in  the  subsequent  letters  he  wrote  to  his 
wife,  the  Spanish- American  ceased  to  disparage  the 
country  that  was  sheltering  him.  Now,  it  was  he  who 
was  subjected  to  criticism  for  the  observations  he  had 
made.  These  notes  of  the  censor  arrived  after  he  had 
had  the  time  and  the  opportunity  to  observe  more  closely 
and  to  understand  better  many  things  that  he  had 
judged  at  first  sight  too  superficially. 

The  sudden  ending  of  the  war  provided  him  with 
much  food  for  reflection.  He  witnessed  in  Chicago  the 
delirium  of  popular  ebullition  when  the  news  of  peace 
arrived.  The  people  lost  all  notion  of  propriety,  intoxi- 
cated to  frenzy  with  the  elixir  of  victory.    And  why? 

247 


248      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Had  he  not  believed,  when  he  saw  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  this  country  gave  itself  over  to  preparation  for 
war  that  they  were  going  to  fight  because  war  meant 
good  business  for  the  nation?  And  now  that  the  war 
had  ended  so  suddenly,  demolishing  at  one  blow  great 
business  enterprises,  why  this  delight?  Would  not 
everybody  lose  by  it?  Could  it  mean  that  this  country 
really  loved  peace?  And  did  it  mean  that  the  nation 
had  made  war,  with  much  sacrifice  of  blood  and  money, 
only  for  love  of  justice  ? 

When  he  saw  clearly  that  this  country  had  no  inten- 
tion of  claiming  any  indemnity  from  the  enemy;  when 
he  saw  that  many  newspapers  even  recommended  that 
the  United  States  should  make  to  Belgium,  France  and 
Italy  a  gift  of  the  millions  that  it  had  loaned  them, 
he  began  to  understand  that  this  country  had  not  fought 
to  earn  other  people's  money,  but  to  mitigate  other  peo- 
ple's suffering. 

The  wealthy  Chilean  landowner  had  come  to  the 
United  States  with  the  purpose  of  selling  the  valuable 
copper  deposits  that  he  had  discovered  on  his  extensive 
holdings  in  one  of  the  central  provinces  of  his  country. 
He  had  brought  along  with  him  reports  and  plans  made 
by  the  most  famous  experts  of  the  United  States. 

While  the  war  was  going  on,  business  men  had  listened 
to  his  proposition  and  had  shown  some  interest;  but  all 
of  them  had  said  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  wait  for 
peace.  It  was  true  that  copper  would  then  go  down  m 
value  but,  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  it  was  absurd  to 
think  of  installing  this  new  plant  in  Chile,  since  it  could 
not  be  made  productive  for  some  years,  that  is,  not  until 
after  peace  had  been  declared. 

The  most  hopeful  prospect  arising  out  of  the  many 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  249 

interviews  with  capitalists  which  he  had  had  was  one 
in  negotiation  with  a  gentleman  of  Chicago,  John  H. 
Chasewell;  but  even  he  could  make  no  promises  before 
the  end  of  the  war. 

"Just  now  we  can  think  of  only  one  thing:  winning 
the  war,"  he  had  said  at  the  acutest  stage  of  hostilities. 
Even  he,  in  spite  of  his  advanced  age,  was  thinking  of 
enlisting,  if  circumstances  should  demand  his  quota  of 
blood. 

Once  the  war  was  over,  everything  changed.  The  cap- 
italist paid  close  attention  to  his  proposition,  receiving 
him  several  days  in  succession  at  his  office. 

While  they  talked  the  visitor's  attention  was  drawn 
to  the  portrait  of  a  beautiful  woman,  which  was  stand- 
ing on  the  desk.  He  had  noticed  in  the  offices  of  many 
business  men  framed  photographs  of  their  wives,  and  he, 
who  adored  his  wife,  had  never  thought  of  placing  her 
likeness  on  the  desk  at  his  office.  Nobody  did  this  in  his 
country;  indeed  it  would  invite  ironical  remarks  on 
the  part  of  his  friends. 

Then  he  looked  penetratingly  at  this  Yankee,  young 
at  the  age  of  fifty,  healthy,  virile,  merry,  a  golf  player, 
so  human  in  the  midst  of  his  figures,  his  statistics  and  his 
plans — this  big  boy  who  often  referred  to  his  wife  in 
conversation  as  a  lover  speaks  of  his  sweetheart. 

"No,  Mrs,  Chasewell  believes  that  the  Latin  Ameri- 
can workmen  are  as  human  as  ours  are,  and  much  more 
sensitive,"  he  said  on  one  occasion;  and  when  he  men- 
tioned his  wife,  he  looked  at  the  portrait  as  if  he  were 
formally  introducing  her. 

On  one  occasion  Mr.  Chasewell  invited  the  Chilean 
to  luncheon,  and  this  was  the  beginning  of  a  certain 
intimacy  that  disposed  the  American  to  later  invite  the 


250      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

Chilean  landowner  to  dinner  in  his  own  home.  There 
he  became  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Chasewell ;  and  there  a 
door  was  suddenly  thrown  open  to  him  that  until  then 
had  been  closed — the  entry  to  a  home  in  this  country. 

Later  the  Chilean  gentleman  became  acquainted  with 
many  other  homes  and  many  other  ladies,  who  soon 
convinced  him  how  greatly  he  had  erred  in  his  general- 
izations about  the  American  woman. 

He  remembered  having  read  in  an  American  book 
about  the  meeting  between  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
and  a  Japanese  in  Tokio.  In  the  course  of  their  con- 
versation, which  had  for  its  theme  the  Land  of  the  Ris- 
ing Sun,  the  Japanese  asked :  ' '  Have  you  seen  her  yet ! ' ' 
"If  I  have  seen  her?  Whom?"  asked  the  American. 
"Ah!  If  you  had  seen  her,  you  would  not  have  asked 
who.  .  .  ." 

They  met  again  some  weeks  later.  The  American  had 
seen  the  marvelous,  the  indescribable  Fujiyama — with 
the  summit  capped  with  snow,  reflecting  the  sun's  rays 
in  a  thousand  different  tones  of  color — which  rises  thou- 
sands of  feet  above  the  plain,  unique  and  incomparable 
in  grandeur  and  beauty.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  na- 
tives speak  of  her  as  something  unique  in  the  world. 

Months  passed  by,  and  the  Japanese,  now  on  a  visit 
to  the  United  States,  sought  from  the  Pacific  to  the  At- 
lantic something  that  might  compare  in  beauty  with  the 
Holy  Mountain  of  Nippon.  He  saw  the  Josemite  Val- 
ley, the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  National  Parks  and  Ni- 
agara, but  nowhere  could  he  find  the  one  distinctive 
thing  like  "her"  of  Fujiyama.  As  he  gradually  made 
friends,  American  houses  were  opened  to  him,  and  one 
day,  at  last,  he  exclaimed  joyfully:   "I  have  found  the 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  251 

marvel  of  America,  it  is  the  home,  the  domestic  hearth, 
and  it  is  more  beautiful  than  ours." 

He  was  right.  When  the  traveler  in  the  United  States 
sees  the  facades  of  the  houses,  when  from  the  train  he 
perceives  the  villas  in  country  towns,  he  sees  only  brick 
and  stone;  but  he  does  not  see,  he  does  not  imagine — 
unless  he  has  had  the  privilege  to  know  it — the  home  that 
is  inside,  where  true  happiness  reigns,  where  the  husband 
is  not  the  lord  and  master  of  his  wife  as  in  a  South 
American  home,  where  the  children  have  their  own  in- 
dividuality. 

The  American  home  is  not  confined  by  the  four  walls 
of  the  house ;  it  radiates  beyond.  The  great  number  of 
institutions  for  social  betterment  which  inundate  Chi- 
cago are  extensions,  prolongations  of  the  American  home 
interior.  The  woman  of  this  country  is  not  satisfied 
with  being  the  mother  of  her  children;  she  seems  to 
wish  to  be  a  mother  to  all  the  destitute  of  the  community. 

One  afternoon,  when  passing  through  Thirty-ninth 
Street,  near  the  Lake,  he  saw  that  a  public  block-party 
was  being  held  in  the  middle  of  the  road.  A  band  was 
playing  on  a  temporary  platform.  His  companion,  who 
was  from  the  quarter,  told  him  that  this  was  one  of  the 
dances  given  there  twice  a  week.  It  was  free,  perfectly 
free,  without  formalities  of  any  kind,  to  any  one  who 
cared  to  take  part. 

"This  district  of  Oakland,"  he  was  told,  "is  for  us 
a  village  in  the  middle  of  Chicago.  Ours  is  a  vast 
metropolis,  but  it  is  our  pleasure  to  preserve  an  air  of 
village  life  in  each  district.  We  even  publish  a  little 
newspaper,  for  free  distribution,  giving  the  family  news 
of  the  section.  In  this  way  we  get  to  know  one  another ; 
not  one  among  us  need  feel  isolated.     The  local  theater 


252      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

gives  an  "amateurs'  night"  once  a  week,  when  neigh- 
bors meet  to  be  entertained  with  music,  song  and  other 
amusements.  A  prize  is  awarded  by  the  public,  accord- 
ing to  their  taste.  The  winner  is  he  or  she  who  receives 
the  most  applause.  In  this  way  we  also  stimulate  in- 
dividual talent." 

All  this  was  a  revelation  to  him.  He  began  to  under- 
stand that  a  city  cannot  be  known  to  one  who  lives  in 
the  best  hotel,  and  makes  his  observations  from  his  bal- 
cony. This  spirit  of  association  within  each  quarter  of 
the  city  desiring  to  preserve  the  aspect  of  a  country 
town  was  carried  to  even  greater  lengths  in  other  cities 
like  Cincinnati,  where  they  were  making  of  each  block  a 

social  unit.  . 

Mrs.  Chasewell  had  received  him  with  infinite  cor- 
diality. .  _      A  ..„     . 

"I  am  very  much  interested  to  hear  about  lite  in 
Latin  American  countries,"  she  told  him  on  one  occa- 
sion    "My  husband  has  valuable  mining  interests  m 
Honduras,  and  I  have  accompanied  him  twice  on  his 
visits  there.     It  is  a  country  with  inexhaustible  mining 
resources,  but  what  has  most  interested  me  are  the  peo- 
ple    I  help  him  in  the  social  aspects  of  his  work.     I 
do  not  believe  that  American  capital  has  any  right  to 
exploit  the  natural  resources  of  Latin  America,  if  it  is 
not  willing  to  face  the  social  responsibilities  of  all  capi- 
tal invested  for  profit.     The  foundation  of  commercial, 
industrial  or  mining  enterprises  exclusively  for  the  sake 
of  money  itself  is  to-day  a  thing  of  the  past  in  my  conn- 
try     To  make  money  is  evidently  the  aim  of  our  busi- 
ness  of  course;  but  if  a  concern  does  not  care  for  the 
happiness  of  the  men  it  employs;  if  it  does  not  raise 
them  to  a  higher  plane  of  life;  if  it  does  not  cooperate 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  253 

with  them  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  community, 
then  that  concern  is  held  unworthy  of  public  esteem. ' ' 

The  Chilean's  attention  had  already  been  called  to 
some  items  in  the  estimate  of  expenses  that  Mr.  Chase- 
well  had  made  for  the  installation  of  a  copper  smelting 
plant  on  his  property.  He  had  put  aside  five  million 
dollars  for  workmen's  dwellings,  sanitation  work  and 
recreation,  in  spite  of  the  detailed  reports  in  his  posses- 
sion describing  the  humble  standard  of  life  and  the  very 
low  wages  to  which  the  men  were  accustomed. 

"No,"  Mr.  Chasewell  had  told  him;  "if  we  are  going 
tb  do  big  business  there,  we  must  consider  the  work- 
man as  a  partner  who  is  entitled  to  the  wages,  health, 
happiness  and  education  constituting  his  rightful  share 
in  the  profits  yielded  by  the  work."  We  are  not  going 
to  sweat  men,  but  machines,  by  means  of  intelligent  or- 
ganization. We  shall  raise  men  to  a  higher  plane.  This 
is  what  is  going  on  through  all  Latin  America.  Wher- 
ever we  have  brought  our  industry,  we  are  paying  higher 
wages  than  before,  providing  better  dwellings  ...  we 
educate." 

The  man  of  fortune  is  less  of  an  egoist  in  this  coun- 
try than  in  any  other.  The  case  of  the  millionaire 
Ford,  the  big  automobile  manufacturer,  who,  when  tak- 
ing contracts  for  the  Government  during  the  war,  un- 
dertook to  retain  not  a  cent  of  profit — a  promise  which 
he  lived  up  to — was  but  one  shining  example  among 
thousands  of  other  similar  cases.  Our  hero  brought  to 
mind  an  incident  of  the  Civil  War  that  he  had  read  not 
long  before.  President  Lincoln,  in  his  distress,  calls 
Vanderbilt,  the  millionaire,  and  says  to  him : 

"The  Merrimac  has  anchored  outside  James  River 
Bay.     How  much  do  you  ask  for  capturing  her  ? ' ' 


254      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

"I  ask  nothing,  because  I  do  not  speculate  in  my 
country's  misfortune.  In  two  days  the  Merrimac  will 
be  in  your  hands,"  answers  the  millionaire;  and  in  thir- 
ty-six hours  this  promise  was  fulfilled. 

On  a  larger,  equal  or  smaller  scale,  there  were  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  Vanderbilts  in  the  war  of  lib- 
erty against  slavery,  just  as  on  a  larger,  equal  or  smaller 
scale,  there  were  thousands  and  thousands  of  Fords  in 
this  other  war  of  democracy  against  autocracy.  The  few 
profiteers  were  isolated  black  stains  in  a  blue  sky,  dis- 
playing to  better  effect  the  beautiful  majesty  of  the 
firmament. 

He  had  now  had  occasion  to  see  how  the  whole  nation 
sacrificed  its  personal  interests  before  the  nation's  altar; 
all,  the  poor  and  the  rich,  women  and  men. 

He  had  heard  other  Spanish-Americans  say,  before 
the  United  States  went  into  the  war,  when  they  saw 
the  invasion  and  the  horrors  of  Belgium  and  when  the 
Germans  sunk  the  Lusitania,  that  the  great  American 
democracy  would  not  go  to  war  because  its  business  re- 
quired peace.  In  pursuit  of  the  dollar  they  would  toler- 
ate disgrace  unworthy  of  a  great  nation.  Then  it  was 
peace  for  money's  sake. 

And  later,  when  this  country  joined  the  belligerents, 
he  had  heard  it  said  that  this  move  was  also  for  the 
sake  of  money,  that  they  already  had  loaned  so  many 
millions  of  dollars  to  the  Allies,  had  extended  so  much 
credit,  that  they  also  were  obliged  to  lend  a  helping 
hand  as  a  measure  of  prudence.  And  this  Latin  Ameri- 
can began  to  understand  that  he  had  been  blindly  and 
passively  following  the  current  of  opinion  that  syste- 
matically condemned  this  country,  do  what  it  might. 
Nothing  easier,  nothing  more  comfortable,  no  philosophy 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  255 

more  simple,  than  to  form  a  priori,  an  opinion  about  an 
individual  or  a  nation  and  later  reconcile  to  this  preju- 
dice all  the  actions  of  the  individual  or  nation.  This  is 
much  easier  than  to  analyze  carefully  and  then  to  mod- 
ify the  former  point  of  view. 

Had  he  not  done  this  very  thing?  When  discussing 
this  country,  had  he  not  always  tried  to  adapt  his  judg- 
ment to  the  preconceived  impressions  which  had  been 
stereotyped  in  his  mind? 

Now,  when  he  meditated  upon  the  letter  to  his  wife 
in  which  he  had  told  her  that  this  country  was  mate- 
rialistic, egoistic,  a  mere  dollar  hunting  ground,  the  fig- 
ures of  the  big  multi-millionaires  who  cheerfully  paid  a 
tax  of  more  than  sixty  per  cent,  of  their  profits  to  win  the 
war ;  the  figures  of  the  large  and  small  contributors,  of 
all  those  who  relinquished  their  profits  and  of  all  those 
who  gave  their  time  to  win  the  war ;  of  those  who  went 
as  soldiers  to  give  their  blood,  and  the  women  who  went 
as  nurses  to  the  battlefields  to  win  the  war ;  the  figure  of 
a  whole  nation  of  one  hundred  million  people  assuming 
the  heroic  attitude  of  a  sublime  altruism,  all  this  an- 
swered him: 

"No,  we  are  not  egoists,  we  are  not  materialists. ' ' 
Not  only  were  they  not  egoists,  but  they  had  carried 
their  idealism  to  the  point  of  being  incorrigible  dream- 
ers, the  Don  Quixotes  of  the  world. 

When  he  thought  of  the  letter  that  he  had  written  in 
which  he  told  his  wife  that  this  country  was  not  really 
a  democracy,  that  an  oligarchy  was  in  power  which  im- 
poses on  the  people  its  judgment  and  will,  he  began  to 
see  that  the  muster  of  directors  was  not  here  a  heredi- 
tary body,  as  in  Germany,  or  as  in  the  Latin  American 
republics.    A  number  of  capable  men  ruled  here,  but 


256      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

these  were  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  every  social 
stratum.  Here  was  no  governing  caste  •  new  men,  whose 
families  had  not  figured  on  the  public  stage  in  previous 
generations,  were  elevated  to  high  rank  in  the  adminis- 
tration, ascending  by  the  white  marble  stairs  of  their 
own  merits.  And  what  happened  in  the  official  admin- 
istration of  the  whole  nation,  from  the  presidency  of  the 
Republic — with  its  Lincolns  and  its  "Wilsons — was  also 
the  case  with  regard  to  the  administration  of  private 
fortunes;  laborers  of  yesterday — Carnegie,  Ford,  Edi- 
son— were  the  employers  of  to-day.  Fortune  is  a  social 
force,  and  its  handling  is  given  automatically  by  the 
nation  to  the  most  capable..  He  saw  that  the  same  dem- 
ocratic principle  was  applied  in  private  life,  in  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  clubs,  associations  and  civic, 
religious,  athletic  and  recreative  organizations. 

As  a  democracy  this  country  was  not  perfect;  it  had 
defects;  but  the  ideal  was  there  as  the  goal  which  all 
wished  to  reach.  A  remedy  is  being  found  for  every 
evil.  Nothing  is  perfect;  but  comparing  this  country 
with  others,  is  not  this  the  most  nearly  perfect  of  democ- 
racies ? 

And,  had  he  not  been  mistaken  in  believing  that  an 
aristocratic  government  like  that  of  Germany  was  more 
efficient  than  a  democratic  government  like  this?  Was 
it  well  that  the  countries  of  Latin  America  be  governed 
by  hereditary  castes?  Was  it  not  fully  demonstrated 
that  a  democratic  government  is  not  only  fairer,  but 
also  more  efficient?  What  ha,d  not  the  United  States 
accomplished  in  eleven  months  of  war  ? 

What  a  fine  spirit  of  discipline  there  was  in  this  de- 
mocracy! When  the  people  were  asked — asked,  not  or- 
dered— to  save  gasoline  because  it  was  needed  by  the 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  257 

government,  and  to  avoid  riding  in  motor  cars  on  Sun- 
days, except  in  cases  of  extreme  necessity,  did  lie  not 
see  that  in  Chicago  the  request  of  the  government  had 
more  effect  than  an  imperial  ukase?  The  few  automo- 
biles seen  in  Michigan  Avenue  carried  a  placard  on 
which  was  written:  "Doctor." 

It  is  not  admitted  here  that  the  government  is  the 
master  of  the  people;  it  is  considered  to  be  the  servant 
of  the  people.  The  government  is  the  representative  of 
the  popular  will.  Before  the  Christian  era  kings  con- 
sulted the  Pythonesses  of  the  Oracles  in  order  to  find 
out  what  they  should  do  to  govern  with  wisdom  and  jus- 
tice. In  this  country  the  Delphian  Oracle  of  the  Sanc- 
tuary ,of  Apollo  is  the  American  people;  Mount  Par- 
nassus stretches  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic,  from 
the  frontiers  of  Canada  to  those  of  Mexico,  and  in  it 
each  citizen  is  the  Sibyl  who  tells  his  lawgivers  how  to 
govern  with  wisdom  and  justice. 

And  these  soothsayers  of  the  twentieth  century,  who 
have  commenced  to  mumble  their  advice  with  the  same 
vagueness  as  that  of  the  ancient  oracles,  are  now  speak- 
ing every  day  with  more  clarity,  more  knowledge  and 
more  intelligence,  because  more  and  more  the  means  of 
self  culture  are  being  placed  within  the  reach  of  all. 

With  the  land  of  his  birth  before  his  mind's  eye,  he 
concentrated  his  thoughts  upon  what  the  education  of 
the  masses  in  his  country  would  really  mean:  a  new 
era  in  which  the  number  of  those  able  to  give  in  altissimo 
the  full  measure  of  their  support  to  the  cause  of  na- 
tional progress  would  be  steadily  in  crescendo,  until  the 
country  was  indeed  a  Commonwealth.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
word  had  come  naturally  and  unconsciously  to  this  Span- 
ish-American, because  it  had  no  equivalent  in  Spanish, 


258      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

At  other  times  lie  would  call  to  mind  the  letter  in 
which  he  had  denounced  to  his  wife  the  imperialism 
of  the  United  States,  and  then  he  remembered  the  pa- 
tient attitude  of  this  country  in  face  of  the  outrages 
inflicted  on  Americans  by  some  of  the  rebel  factions  of 
Mexico,  the  independence  they  had  given  Cuba,  the  in- 
dependence which,  in  good  faith,  was  offered  to  the 
Philippines,  and  the  emphatic  declarations  made  during 
the  war  that  there  would  be  no  annexations,  although 
this  country  had  been  a  decisive  factor  in  the  victory. 
All  these  facts  seemed  to  shout  in  his  ear : 

"No,  we  are  not  imperialists,  we  have  no  desire  to 
be.  "We  wish  only  to  be  a  great  country,  prosperous 
and  happy,  and  to  help  all  other  countries,  as  well  as 
we  can,  also  to  attain  prosperity  and  happiness.' ' 

There  were  elements  of  imperialism  in  the  country, 
and  some  of  the  newspapers  were  also  imperialistic  in 
their  tendency.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  In  a  coun- 
try of  a  hundred  million  souls,  every  one  of  them  with 
liberty  to  give  an  opinion,  secure  in  the  knowledge  that 
it  would  obtain  a  hearing,  and  where  there  is  an  inex- 
haustible faith  in  one 's  fellow  man,  be  he  a  college  grad- 
uate or  a  yokel,  was  it  not  to  be  expected  that  imperial- 
ists might  be  found,  not  to  say  sorcerers,  occultists  and 
futurists  ! 

When  he  thought  of  what  he  had  written  so  bitterly 
reproaching  the  United  States  for  its  attitude  toward 
the  negroes,  he  could  not  help  recalling  the  affrays  be- 
tween whites  and  blacks  that  had  taken  place  in  the 
country  during  the  year  of  his  residence  in  it.  But  at 
the  same  time  he  had  to  consider  very  closely  what  this 
grafting  of  the  negro  race  in  a  country  of  whites  really 
.signified. 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  259 

He  recollected  a  conversation  he  had  had  with  a  negro 
who  had  attained  national  celebrity  as  a  thinker.  It 
was  an  intimate  talk  in  which  the  negro  spoke  with  the 
utmost  sincerity. 

"Yes,  I  have  white  blood  in  my  veins,"  he  said. 
"Every  negro  who  has  distinguished  himself — like 
Booker  T.  Washington,  for  instance — has  had  white 
blood  in  his  veins.  The  thoroughbred  negro  is  of  a  race 
inferior,  both  intellectually  and  morally,  to  that  of  the 
white.  The  process  of  moral  advancement,  until  he  at- 
tains the  level  of  the  civilization  under  whose  protection 
he  has  been  received,  must  entail  a  long  period  of  strug- 
gle and  suffering.  I  have  faith  in  the  future  of  the 
negro  race,  but  only  because  it  enjoys  here  wonderful 
facilities  for  improvement." 

One  day,  getting  off  a  trolley-car,  he  saw  a  man  sur- 
prised in  the  act  of  stealing  a  lady's  purse.  When  the 
thief  saw  that  he  was  caught,  he  threw  the  purse  on  the 
ground,  but  the  crowd  which  had  gathered  round 
shouted  at  him :  ' '  Pick  it  up !  Pick  it  up ! "  as  they  pre- 
pared to  take  him  to  the  nearby  police-station. 

The  pickpocket  was  by  no  means  inclined  to  appear 
before  the  police  with  the  stolen  object  in  his  hand,  and 
it  was  a  sight  to  see  the  threatening  fists  of  the  crowd 
raised  to  strike  as  they  cried  again :  ' '  Pick  it  up !  Pick 
it  up!" 

These  and  other  similar  incidents  had  given  him  the 
clew  which  explained — though  it  did  not  excuse — lynch- 
ing in  this  country.  These  nameless  throngs  which 
lynched  were  not  thirsty  for  blood,  they  were  athirst 
for  justice,  and  had  not — in  the  moment  of  passion — 
enough  control  over  their  actions  to  await  the  slow  but 
sure  march  of  official  justice. 


260      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

And  was  it  not  foolish  of  him  to  have  written  to  his 
wife  declaiming  against  the  right  to  vote  in  the  United 
States  heing  given  to  women?  During  one  year  that  he 
had  lived  in  this  country  he  had  been  able  to  see  that 
women  here  were  a  much  more  intense  social  factor  than 
in  his  own  country.  Certainly,  in  the  countries  of  Latin 
America  there  was  a  smaller  proportion  of  women 
equipped  for  civic  life,  and  it  would  be  inopportune  to 
grant  to  all-the  prepared  and  the  unprepared-the 
right  to  take  part  in  public  affairs.  The  same  thing, 
however,  applied  to  man.  But  even  in  his  own  country, 
was  not  woman  interesting  herself  more  and  more  in  the 
great  national  problems?  . 

He  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  undoubtedly,  ma 
democracy,  however  nearly  perfect  it  may  be  it  is  need- 
ful to  place  certain  restrictions  on  the  right  to  vote. 
No  insane  person  should  vote,  nor  children;  nor  any  un- 
cultured illiterate;  certain  requisites  should  be  insisted 
upon  before  allowing  an  individual  to  exercise  his  rights 
as  a  citizen.     But  these  restrictions,  as  well  as  these 
rights,  should  be  applied  impartially  to  men  and  women. 
Often  some  incident  or  a  new  acquaintance  would 
make  him  think  of  matters  about  which  he  had  written 
to  his  wife,  and  he  found  himself  comparing  them  with 
other  analagous  incidents  and  other  persons  whose  ac- 
quaintance he  had  made  before.    Faimharity  with  the 
ulterior  of  a  happy  home,  acquaintance  with  a  married 
couple  of  which  the  woman  enjoys  complete  liberty  and 
is  faithful  and  sincere,  and  whose  husband  loves  her  and 
respects-in  every  detail-her  dignity  as  a  woman     ed 
Z  to  understand  the  felicity  of  other  homes  of  which 
he  had  had  a  glimpse.    He  then  began  to  see  that  it  is 
the  exceptional  cases,  the  big  scandals,  that  make  most 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  261 

noise,  that  attract  most  attention,  that  are  most  fre- 
quently mentioned  in  the  newspapers,  and  that  most 
largely  contribute  to  the  pernicious  habit  of  generaliza- 
tion common  to  the  ill-informed. 

And  if  marriage  is  a  failure,  as  sometimes  happens 
in  all  parts  of  the  world,  with  all  peoples,  with  all  races, 
either  because  the  man  is  unworthy  of  his  wife  or  she 
unworthy  of  him,  what  is  more  natural  than  a  desire 
for  freedom  on  the  part  of  the  spouse  who  has  been 
an  innocent  victim,  instead  of  a  perpetual  widowhood? 

With  regard  to  this  question  of  women's  rights,  not 
only  had  he  been  confuted  by  the  censor  of  New  York ; 
not  only  had  the  facts  shown  the  fallacy  of  his  argu- 
ments when  he  had  later  begun  to  understand  this  coun- 
try, but  even  his  own  wife  disagreed  with  him.  ''All 
you  tell  me  about  the  United  States,"  she  had  written, 
1  'is  so  interesting,  and  the  censor's  notes  have  made  it 
doubly  so.  I  must  say  very  frankly  that  your  letters 
often  puzzle  me,  and  sometimes — as  for  instance  with 
regard  to  all  your  references  to  the  question  of  women's 
rights — I  am  less  inclined  to  take  sides  with  you  than 
with  the  censor.  We  are  a  very  happy  couple,  you  and  I, 
but  this  is  not  the  general  rule.  The  condition  of  woman 
in  all  Latin  America  is  a  continental  tragedy.  I  can 
easily  imagine  how  much  happier  woman  is  in  the 
United  States  and  how  man  is  happier  in  consequence. 
You  think  that  your  letters  would  cure  me  of  my  longing 
to  know  the  United  States,  but  they  have  had  the  con- 
trary effect.  That  country  attracts  me  now  much  more 
than  Europe." 

And  something  that  all  his  life  had  seemed  to  him 
most  natural,  most  logical  and  most  advisable  for  the 
cause  of  national  morality,  was  that  the  Church  be  sup- 


262  TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 
ported  by  the  State.  The  people  themselves  are  not 
generous  enough  to  pay  on  their  own  initiative »  the  ex 
penses  of  the  ehurch-he  had  always  believed  The 
state  must  exact  from  all  citizens  the  payment  of  con- 
tentions for  the  support  of  the  ^  important  ot. 
of  the  nation:  safety,  justice  and  education.  Are  not 
religion  and  fear  of  God  more  important  than  these? 

Only  when  he  saw  that  in  the  United  States  the  Catho- 
lics were  more  devout  and  sincerely  religious  than  m  hxs 
Jwn 'country,  when  he  saw  that  *,  ■*£«*  the,  own 
Church  with  more  liberality  than  the  state  in  Chile  had 
ever  shown  in  supporting  the  national  cult  he  began  to 
2k  the  matter  over  very  carefully,  thereby  divesting 
himself  of  many  prejudices  that  had  become  «£**• 
his  mental  personality.     He  began  to  understand  that  it 
would  be  much  better  for  Catholicism  m  his  conntry- 
IsTn  all  Latin  America-to  retain  no  connection  between 
Church  and  State.     The  money  which  the  State  gave  to 
^he  Church,  the  budget  estimates  for  the  cult,  that  every 
year  gave  rise  to  a  sectarian  dispnte  in  Congress,  would 
be  easily  covered  by  public  initiative,  and  the  people 
would  b"  more  intensely  and  sincerely  £^  *»* 
mere  fact  of  their  contributing  voluntarily  to  the  sup 

Pltr0ftenU t'tahe  his  meals  without  wine  be^e 
in  certain  restaurants  none  was  to  be  had.  At  to  tin 
seemed  to  him  an  nnheard-of  thing,  bu .he  ^ J°  ^ * 
up  with  it.  Sometimes  he  was  invited  to  dine  at  a 
honsTwhere  only  water  was  served,  which  seemed  to  him 
noS  less  than  a  crime,  a  breach  of  hospita hty On 
th  occasion  of  a  short  trip  that  he  had  made  to  a  dry 
State  he  spent  two  weeks  without  tasting  a  drop  of  wine, 
^he first  day  he  found  this  deprivation  unbearable,  the 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  263 

second  day  He  was  able  to  put  up  with  it  better,  and 
though  at  the  end  of  his  journey  he  was  naturally  anx- 
ious to  return  to  Chicago  in  order  to  take  his  meals  with 
wine,  he  was  surprised  to  note  how  each  day  it  had  been 
easier  for  him  to  enjoy  a  meal  with  water  instead  of 
wine. 

Personal  convenience  contributes  greatly  to  every- 
body's system  of  philosophy.  We  rarely  find  individ- 
uals willing  to  reason  and  act  on  the  strength  of  the  ab- 
stract, eliminating  their  personal  convenience  in  order 
to  formulate  their  social  or  political  creed;  and  there 
is  nothing  very  strange  in  the  fact  that  our  Spanish- 
American  vineyard  proprietor  should  begin  to  look  with 
a  certain  modicum  of  sympathy — timid  sympathy,  it  is 
true — upon  the  prohibition  movement  of  this  country, 
seeing  that  the  land  he  owned  not  only  could  produce 
grapes,  which  drop  by  drop  had  distilled  a  fortune  for 
him,  but  also  possessed,  hidden  in  its  bowels,  copper,  for 
the  exploitation  of  which  sober  men  would  be  needed. 
This  line  of  thought  influenced  him  subconsciously. 

And  this  campaign  against  alcohol  was  beginning  to 
take  root  in  Latin  America.  In  Mexico,  Brazil  and  in 
Chile  the  governments  had  been  taking  steps  which  were 
bringing  them  nearer  to  prohibition.  The  United  States 
would  soon  be  on  a  basis  of  prohibition ;  the  great  experi- 
ment was  about  to  be  made  throughout  the  country,  and 
upon  the  result  of  this  experiment  depended  the  fate 
of  whisky,  wine  and  beer  in  Latin  America.  Every  coun- 
try in  the  world  is  a  social  laboratory,  and  it  is  best  that 
all  should  not  make  the  same  experiment  at  the  same 
time.  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary  had  been  experi- 
menting in  autocracy;  the  United  States  were  experi- 
menting in  democracy.     And  the  world  had  learned  its 


264      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

lesson.  Europe  was  experimenting  with  official  prosti- 
tution, the  United  States  with  the  suppression  of  pros- 
titution. Latin  America  experiments  with  the  negation 
of  women's  rights,  the  United  States  with  their  ex- 
altation. France  experiments  with  the  glass  of  wine  at 
mealtimes,  the  United  States  with  the  glass  of  milk. 

In  no  other  country  are  so  many  social  experiments 
made  as  in  the  United  States  because  here  each  State  is 
also  a  laboratory  within  the  nation.  Here  there  is  per- 
sonality for  the  individual — man,  woman  and  child; 
there  is  personality  for  the  community,  for  the  city  and 
for  the  State.  And  in  no  other  country  are  the  experi- 
ments being  made  with  more  faith  and  more  vehemence. 
Every  new  idea,  every  new  proposal  which  has  any  prob- 
ability of  success  is  given  an  opportunity  to  make  good. 

This  Spanish- American  gentleman  had  believed  that 
the  United  States  occupied  a  lower  place  than  the  coun- 
tries of  Central  and  South  America  in  the  matter  of 
culture,  habit  and  social  manners ;  but,  just  after  he  had 
received  from  Chile  the  notes  that  the  censor  in  New 
York  had  added  to  the  letter  in  which  he  spoke  about 
this  subject  to  his  wife,  an  incident  had  occurred  which 
caused  him  to  alter  his  mind  on  the  subject.  A  young 
American  who  spoke  Spanish,  but  who  had  never  been 
in  a  Spanish-speaking  country,  told  him  that  on  a  visit 
to  New  York  he  had  attended  several  times  at  the  Span- 
ish Theater  of  that  city  in  order  to  exercise  his  ear  in 
the  language;  and  he  added  that  he  had  never  seen  a 
display  of  worse  behavior.  The  audience  shouted  such 
impertinent  vulgarities  at  the  actors  that  they  had  made 
him  blush  as  never  before  in  his  life. 

That  theater  is  frequented  exclusively  by  Spaniards 
and  Latin  Americans,  and  the  young  man  from  Chicago 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  265 

had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  people  of  these  coun- 
tries were  habitually  coarse.  The  hero  of  our  story  had 
to  take  it  upon  himself  for  the  first  time  the  defense  of 
Latin  Americans  from  such  attacks,  and  to  maintain  that 
the  theater  which  the  young  man  from  Chicago  had  at- 
tended did  not  cater  to  the  best  people  from  these  coun- 
tries. But  the  very  fact  that  he  had  to  undertake  this 
defense  made  him  think  that  he,  in  his  turn,  had  perhaps 
jumped  at  conclusions  with  the  same  undue  haste  as  the 
person  whose  inferences  he  was  now  setting  right. 

There  were  uncultured,  uneducated,  badly  behaved 
people  everywhere,  in  that  America  and  in  this  Amer- 
ica j  with  the  difference  that  in  Latin  America  the  social 
classes  are  so  widely  separated  amongst  themselves  that 
the  well  bred  man  has  no  opportunity  of  criticizing  the 
vulgar  herd.  It  is  an  unheard-of  thing  over  there  that  a 
millionaire  should  seat  himself  alongside  a  workman,  as 
might  easily  happen  here. 

The  censor's  argument  concerning  the  letter  in  which 
he  had  spoken  of  the  want  of  good  manners,  of  courtesy 
in  the  United  States  had  impressed  him  greatly.  Here 
was  no  privileged,  hereditary  class  which  inherited  its 
social  manners  with  its  name  and  fortune.  Here  a 
workman  could  become  a  man  of  importance  in  the  land, 
often  in  a  few  years'  time.  In  this  democracy  there  were 
to  be  found  rough  men  among  the  upper  classes ;  whereas 
in  Latin  America  this  was  not  the  case  because  stability 
of  caste  was  there  the  rule.  The  description  of  the 
sinking  of  the  Titanic  had  moved  him  acutely.  This  at 
least  was  evidently  the  truth :  those  men  who  might  per- 
haps not  yield  their  seats  to  ladies  in  a  trolley-car  were 
quick  to  give  their  life-belts  to  women  in  a  wreck  at  sea. 

One  afternoon,  after  having  visited  Hull  House,  and 


266      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

after  a  delightful  chat  with  Jane  Addams,  right  in  the 
settlement,  where  he  had  tea  with  this  wonderful  woman 
and  with  other  women  who  worked  with  her,  he  returned 
to  his  hotel  and  seated  in  his  room  up  on  the  tenth  floor, 
with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  lake,  there  came  to  his 
mind  a  deeply  felt  experience  of  his  life.  It  was  an 
intimate  story  about  a  pretty  girl  of  his  own  social 
circle,  to  whom  he  had  done  irreparable  harm  by  airing 
an  injurious  and  unjustified  opinion  about  her.  Later, 
he  came  to  know  her  intimately  and  became  convinced 
of  his  lamentable  error. 

Why  did  this  story  come  to  his  mind?  Because  he 
was  beginning  to  believe  that  the  United  States  was  a 
second  girl  about  whom  he  had  expressed  injurious  and 
unjustified  opinions.  It  was  not  so  easy  to  become 
acquainted  with  a  country  as  with  a  person,  but  in  fact 
a  country  has  also  individual  characteristic  features; 
and  the  ugly  conviction  was  already  dawning  on  him 
that  he  had  been  slandering  unconsciously  a  country 
not  only  worthy  of  the  greatest  respect  and  admiration, 
but  worthy  also  of  being  imitated  by  the  sister  countries 
of  America  for  the  good  of  the  entire  continent. 

Moreover,  the  successful  conclusion  of  his  business 
here,  the  sale  of  those  deposits  which  left  him  the  pos- 
sessor of  a  large  fortune  and  a  stockholder  in  the  new 
enterprise,  influenced  subconsciously  the  new  condition 
of  his  mind  in  observing,  judging  and  generalizing.  In 
the  transaction  of  this  business  he  had  been  treated  with 
the  most  rigorous  honesty  and  the  most  exquisite  affabil- 
ity; his  country  was  spoken  of  with  the  utmost  respect; 
it  was  proposed  to  remunerate  generously  the  men  that 
were  going  to  be  employed  and  to  provide  good  living 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  267 

conditions  for  them.    All  this  also  helped  him  to  get  rid 
of  his  former  prejudiced  viewpoint. 

The  day  was  approaching  when  he  must  return  to  his 
native  land.  Before  leaving  he  was  to  stop  for  a  few 
weeks  in  New  York,  a  city  with  which  he  was  not  per- 
sonally acquainted,  since  on  arriving  in  this  country  he 
had  landed  in  New  Orleans  and  had  visited  only  the 
Southern,  Western  and  Central  States. 

In  New  York  he  took  an  apartment  in  the  Waldorf- 
Astoria,  and  from  there  made  short  trips  to  Washing- 
ton, Boston  and  Philadelphia.  Two  days  before  he  left, 
General  Pershing  arrived  in  New  York.  The  city  was 
en  fete.  He  also  was  moved  to  see  from  his  window 
on  Fifth  Avenue  the  " march  past"  of  soldiers  who  had 
been  led  by  a  simple,  unassuming  man,  a  genuine  type 
of  the  people  whose  flag  he  defended. 

The  afternoon  before  his  departure,  while  engaged 
with  packing  in  his  room,  he  was  called  to  the  telephone. 
A  lady  wished  to  see  him.  He  went  down  and  received 
the  lady  in  one  of  the  large  saloons  on  the  main  floor. 

<<gir  »  began  the  young  lady,  whose  big  eyes 

irradiated  sympathy,  "I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  know- 
ing you  personally;  only  by  chance  I  discovered  that 
you  were  here,  and  I  have  not  hesitated  in  coming  to 
ask  you  for  a  moment's  conversation.  My  name  is 
Mabel  Jones.  It  was  I  who  in  the  Censor's  Office  of 
the  Government  read  and  added  comments  to  the  letters 
which  you  wrote  your  wife." 

The  gentleman's  surprise  was  such  that  he  could  not 
control  himself  sufficiently  to  hide  it. 

"Please  sit  down,  madam,  your  visit  is  a  great  pleas- 
ure for  me." 

"I  want  to  ask  your  pardon  personally.  ..." 


268      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

"But  it  is  I  who  should  ask  your  pardon  and  thank 
you.  I  have  contracted  a  debt  toward  you  which  I  do 
not  know  how  to  repay.  I  have  read  all  the  notes  with 
which  you  supplemented  my  letters,  and  they  have  been 
a  decisive  factor  in  showing  me  how  I  should  judge  of 
this  country.  I  beg  your  pardon,  madam,  for  the  errors 
into  which  I  had  f alien.' ' 
She  smiled. 

"Is  it  to  one  who  is  convinced,  or  to  a  Latin  gen- 
tleman, traditionally  gallant  with  ladies,  that  I  am 
speaking  ?" 

The  elegant  figure,  the  delicate  features,  the  gentle 
manners  and  the  instinctive  aristocratic  grace  that  this 
man  had  inherited  from  his  forefathers  served  but  to 
corroborate  the  preconception  that  Miss  Jones  had 
formed  of  him.  He,  smilingly,  but  giving  to  his  tone 
and  to  the  slight  movement  of  his  head  all  the  attri- 
butes of  conviction,  rejoined: 

"A  convert,  madam,  and  also  a  repentant  sinner. " 
The  conversation  swept  quickly  from  one  topic  to 
another,  speaking  of  imperialism,  of  democracy,  of 
woman  suffrage,  of  education,  of  marriage  and  of  di- 
vorce. Now  that  they  had  reached  the  same  level,  it 
was  easy  to  understand  each  other. 

In  the  midst  of  a  well  dressed  crowd  in  constant  move- 
ment, amid  thousands  of  voices  muffled  by  carpets  and 
curtains,  surrounded  by  the  scent  of  flowers  and  the 
melodious  strains  of  the  orchestra,  they  seemed  to  be  as 
isolated  as  the  monks  of  St.  Gothard;  and  as  the  sun 
bathes  the  mountain  tops,  the  light  of  truth  bathed  the 
spirit  of  this  Spanish-American. 

The  conversation  took  them  so  far,  that  night  begar 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  269 

to  fall  without  either  of  them  noticing  the  flight  of  time. 
When  he  saw  how  late  it  was,  he  asked  her : 

"  Would  you  be  so  kind  as  to  accept  an  invitation  to 
dinner  ?  It  is  the  first  and  last  opportunity  that  I  shall 
have  to  see  you." 

And  she,  knowing  that  he  was  leaving  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  and  having  her  message  still  untold,  did  not 
scruple  to  accept  the  invitation.  They  were  only  a  few 
steps  away  from  the  spacious  dining  room  of  the  hotel, 
with  its  windows  looking  out  upon  Fifth  Avenue,  very 
near  one  of  which  they  took  their  places. 

He  repeated  in  different  ways  how  very  grateful  he 
was  to  Miss  Jones  for  all  the  trouble  she  had  taken,  ex- 
pressing himself  as  doubtful  of  ever  being  able  to  recom- 
pense her  trouble. 

"You  can  repay  me  by  granting  a  favor  I  wish  to 
ask  you." 

"It  will  be  a  pleasure  for  me  to  have  the  opportunity 
to  do  anything  for  you." 

"My  supplements  to  your  letters  have  contributed, 
you  tell  me,  to  make  you  better  capable  of  understand- 
ing this  country.  I  think  that  by  publishing  them  to- 
gether with  your  letters,  which  are  a  revelation  of  the 
way  in  which  many  Latin  Americans  judge  the  United 
States,  others  might  also  be  induced  to  learn  the  truth 
about  my  country.  I  doubt  whether  the  perusal  of  these 
letters  will  alone  suffice  to  definitely  convince  anybody 
with  deep-rooted  convictions  toward  a  contrary  opinion, 
but  they  may  serve  as  a  compass  to  direct  the  mind, 
as  a  help  to  understanding.  Would  you  give  me  per- 
mission to  publish  your  letters  ? ' ' 

"With  the  greatest  pleasure,  although  I  would  prefer 
that  you  do  not  publish  my  name.     Or  if  you  wish  my 


270      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

name  to  appear,  you  must  give  me  permission  to  change 
the  form  of  the  letters,  which  I  wrote  as  if  I  were  speak- 
ing freely,  alone  with  my  wife." 

''Oh!  That  is  just  something  that  must  be  preserved. 
It  could  very  rarely  happen  that  any  one  would  write 
in  that  way  for  our  public,  censuring  our  nation;  but 
you  have  left  on  record  in  those  letters  the  form  and 
substance  of  opinions  held  by  many,  very  many  Latin 
Americans  regarding  my  country.  There  are  writers 
among  them  who  have  spoken  with  still  more  rancor  of 
my  country  in  books,  magazines,  newspapers  and  public 
lectures.  These  opinions  are  mistaken,  sometimes  pur- 
posely, and  evidently  inspired  by  bad  faith,  but  most  of 
the  time  they  are  due  to  ignorance.  At  all  events,  it  is 
advisable  to  know  these  conceptions  in  order  to  combat 
them.  It  makes  no  difference  that  your  name  is  with- 
held. You  are  a  Latin  American,  a  representative 
Latin  American  of  the  highest  class  of  those  countries. 
That  is  what  matters.' ' 

"Thanks  for  your  good  opinion.  You  may  use  those 
letters  as  you  see  fit." 

All  New  York  seemed  to  be  passing  through  the  Ave- 
nue, the  most  imposing  artery  in  the  world.  From  their 
seats,  the  American  of  the  North  and  the  American  of 
the  South  were  as  if  seated  on  the  banks  of  a  swollen 
human  river. 

"Yes,  I  have  arrived  at  the  true  comprehension  of 
the  significance  and  beauty  of  democracy,  and  I  believe 
that  this  country,  more  than  any  other,  is  striving  whole- 
heartedly that  democratic  ideals  may  prevail/'  he  con- 
tinued gravely.  ' '  This  nation  has  the  biggest  collective 
soul  in  the  world.  I  told  you  before  that  I  was  a  re- 
pentant sinner,  a  convert.     I  might  say  that  it  is  an- 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  271 

other  man  whom  you  are  meeting  now.  I  have  been 
transformed;  I  have  a  different  soul  in  the  same  body. 
Not  only  have  I  changed  my  mode  of  thinking  with  re- 
gard to  your  country ;  I  have  acquired  a  new  philosophy 
regarding  many  of  the  cardinal  problems  of  life. 

As  he  spoke,  his  eyes  seemed  to  shine  with  a  new  light, 
the  illumination  of  awakening.  It  was  more  than  the 
awakening  of  a  man;  it  was  the  awakening  of  a  conti- 
nent. 

"Of  all  the  things  you  have  said  to  your  wife  in  those 
letters,  of  all  your  judgments,  which  appears  to  you  now 
as  the  most  mistaken?  Which  of  them  do  you  regret 
most?"  asked  Miss  Jones. 

This  question  delighted  the  Chilean  gentleman. 
Though  all  that  he  had  said  in  the  letters  was  liable  to 
put  him  out  of  countenance  before  an  American  lady, 
there  was  one  thing  which  mortified  him  more  than  the 

rest. 

"What  I  most  regret  to  have  said  is  that  the  American 
woman  is  not  a  woman,  but  a  neutral  being,  and  that  I 
would  not  have  married  one  of  them  if  there  had  been  no 
other  women  in  the  world.     They  are  charming.' | 

"I  might  have  expected  that  answer,"  she  said  smil- 
ingly. ' '  Politeness  is  second  nature  to  you  Latin  Ameri- 
cans. '  ■ 

"I  admire  this  country,"  he  went  on,  seeing  that  he 
need  no  further  insist  in  his  apology.  "I  think  you  are 
giving  a  lesson  to  the  whole  of  our  America ;  but  do  you 
not  think  that  there  is  a  real  social  menace,  a  danger 
for  democracy,  in  this  popular  ferment,  in  these  ideas  of 
communism,  of  bolshevism,  that  fill  the  air  in  your  coun- 

"No,"  she  answered.     "The  American  people,  on  the 


272      TEE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

whole,  believe  in  democracy.  Foreign  elements,  which 
we  have  in  more  abundance  than  any  other  nation,  have 
come  to  preach  here  a  revolutionary  socialism  which  is  at 
variance  with  our  principles.  There  is  but  one  way  to 
play  the  game  of  life,  and  indeed  all  games,  whether  they 
are  of  the  mind  or  of  the  muscle.  Be  it  chess  or  base- 
ball, both  sides  begin  with  the  same  elements.  The 
two  castles,  the  two  bishops,  the  two  knights  of  one 
player  can  move  from  square  to  square  in  the  same  way 
as  the  castles,  the  bishops  and  the  knights  of  the  other 
player.  And  in  baseball  the  balls  and  bats  are  the 
same  for  both  teams.  But  the  intelligence,  the  plan  of 
campaign  of  one  chess  player  or  one  baseball  captain 
is  superior  to  that  of  the  other,  and  sooner  or  later  a 
master  stroke  puts  the  balance  in  his  favor.  The  de- 
feated party  is  not  beaten  definitely;  more  study  on 
his  part,  more  practice,  more  attention,  may  see  him  the 
winner  to-morrow.  Good  sportsmen  go  on  with  the 
game;  as  losers  they  join  in  the  applause  for  the  victors, 
who  reap  the  laurels  won  by  their  efforts.  Later  on 
these  honors  may  be  theirs. 

"Thus,  in  a  democracy  we  want  the  game  of  life  to 
begin  under  equal  conditions  for  all.  The  public  school, 
the  library  and  the  college  are  within  the  reach  of  every 
one.  The  winners  are  those  who,  with  more  effort  and 
more  intelligence,  move  their  pawns  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. All  have  a  chance  to  win  on  a  larger  or  smaller 
scale.  We  must  play  the  game.  The  distinctive  token 
of  victory  differs  according  to  the  game  that  is  being 
played.  In  chess  it  is  checkmate,  in  baseball  the  home 
run,  in  art  the  glory,  and  in  business  it  is  money. 

"But  the  game  must  be  played,  and  the  laws  of  the 
game  must  be  respected,  which  in  the  case  of  life  are 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  273 

the  laws  dictated  by  the  majority.  There  must  be  win- 
ners and  losers.  And  the  winners  of  to-day  are  not 
necessarily  the  winners  of  to-morrow.  If  the  losers  are 
in  the  majority,  and  if  they  are  not  satisfied  with  the 
rules  of  the  game,  they  can  change  them,  because  the 
fundamental  principle  of  our  laws  is  that  they  can  be 
changed  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the  majority." 
"And  what  do  the  communists  want  in  this  game  of 

life  ? ? ' 

"They  want  ...  not  to  play  the  game.  They  claim 
that  there  should  be  no  winners  or  losers.  They  want 
it  to  be  established  that  he  who  exerts  himself,  he  who 
studies  and  he  who  works  shall  enjoy  the  same  honors 
as  he  who  does  not  exert  himself,  or  he  who  does  not 
study,  or  he  who  does  not  work;  they  claim  that  Edison 
should  receive  the  same  remuneration  as  the  joiner  who 
makes  a  wooden  box  for  the  phonograph  invented  by  the 
scientist;  they  want  Carrel  to  earn  as  much  as  a  quack 
dentist;  they  think  that  Ford  should  earn  the  same 
wages  as  a  chauffeur.  They  would  snatch  away  the 
winning  pieces  from  a  chess  player  who  is  about  to  win 
the  game.  These  Utopian  and  nonsensical  pretensions 
are  equivalent  to  an  order  for  the  removal  of  mountains, 
a  foolish  mandate  to  raze  the  Andes  or  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  order  to  make  of  the  world  an  even,  level  plain. 
This  is  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  our  country." 

The  orchestra  filled  the  room  with  its  melodies.  Ele- 
gantly dressed  ladies  and  gentlemen  continued  coming 
in  and  occupying  all  the  tables  of  the  large  dining  room. 
Outside,  the  Avenue  looked  like  day,  with  its  brilliant 
lights.  'The  human  river  streamed  on  in  a  continuous 
and  overflowing  torrent. 

"But  the  men  and  women  of  our  country/    she  con- 


274      THE  GULF  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING 

tinned,  "have  confidence  in  themselves,  they  wish  to 
play  the  game  of  life  and  to  continue  their  efforts  in 
the  struggle  to  perfect  the  laws  of  the  game." 

At  that  moment — it  was  a  day  of  civic  celebrations 
and  of  receptions  for  great  soldiers— the  strains  of  the 
national  hymn  of  the  United  States  were  heard,  and 
the  Chilean  gentleman  felt  himself  overpowered  by  al- 
most the  same  emotion  that  always  moved  him  when 
hearing  his  own  national  hymn.  He  rose  immediately, 
even  before  the  rest  of  the  people,  and  at  that  moment, 
there,  in  the  heart  of  New  York,  he  felt  that  he  was  in 
a  glorious  country,  which  was  receiving  the  men  of  old 
Europe,  and  inspiring  them  with  the  new  energy  and 
ideals  that  a  virgin  world  has  to  offer.  He  felt,  for  the 
first  time,  the  fibers  of  continental  love  vibrate ;  he  had  a 
presentiment  of  the  future  greatness  of  all  America,  and 
he  understood  that  he  must  be  animated  by  a  spirit  of 
love,  fraternity  and  mutual  intelligence,  in  order  to  take 
his  part  in  the  fulfillment  of  the  great  destinies  of  the 
New  World  that  was  to  be  a  world  made  new. 

They  were  an  American  of  the  North  and  an  Ameri- 
can of  the  South,  educated  in  two  different  continents, 
with  different  idiosyncrasies.  They  were  two  souls,  sym- 
bolical of  two  different  races  which  had  come  from  Eu- 
rope three  centuries  ago,  and  were  occupying  different 
rooms  in  the  same  continental  palace.  During  three 
centuries  these  peoples  had  merely  exchanged  visiting 
cards.  Only  now  were  they  beginning  to  know  each 
other ;  only  now  was  it  dawning  upon  their  minds  that 
mutual  understanding  and  cooperation  were  necessary. 
He  would  return  home,  to  the  side  of  his  wife  and 
children  who  were  anxiously  waiting  for  him;  she 
would  remain  here,  at  the  side  of  those  dear  to  her. 


THE  LIGHT  OF  TRUTH  275 

Their  eyes  met;  not  the  eyes  of  a  man  and  a  woman 
lit  np  by  passion,  but  those  of  one  America  and  the 
other  America  that  understood  each  other,  two  con- 
tinents of  a  new  world  that  had  been  divorced  from 
each  other  and  that  wished  to  be  re-united. 


THE  END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


inter-iIbr 


J*v.     0ct4  4'c  p 
"  RY  LOAN 


7Apr52sS 

MAY  ?      (952 
JUN  1     1952 


MJ6 


^4\97042 


2Dec59RH« 


Ml    £ 

DEC "? "  1959 
REC'D  LO    SEP 


g   70.4PW58 


LD  21-100m-9,'48(B399sl6)476 


r 


/ 


454907 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


